


not yet awake

by jmcats



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Avengers AU, First Time, Liam is captain britain, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Rimming, Survivor Guilt, marvel film au, zayn is tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:09:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 79,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2669846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmcats/pseuds/jmcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam doesn't know this world.  He feels out of place and he doesn't trust anyone.  All he knows is flashbacks of a life he doesn't know anymore and all he hears is <i>'thank you Captain Britain'</i> but Liam is not a hero.  He's a <i>solider</i>.</p><p>He has one mission for SHIELD: <i>keep Zayn Malik safe</i>.  Unfortunately, he <i>hates</i> this cocky, arrogant, manic boy who wears suits and has iron where his heart should be.</p><p>(Re: SHIELD wants to protect Malik Industries and Liam has been avoiding <i>the Avengers Initiative</i> for months now... until he has no choice but to trust <i>someone</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who listened to me and encouraged me to finally write this fic. It's a pre- _Avengers_ story, so forgive me if it's not what you expected. It's the longest piece I've written and I hope it's worth a read. This idea came from this prompt: [_Liam Payne may or may not be Captain America. Zayn Malik may or may not be Iron Man… and when they’re not too busy saving the world, they may or may not be dating_](http://ziamism.tumblr.com/post/52362042611/au-meme-liam-payne-may-or-may-not-be-captain). I hope my spin on it did the idea some justice.
> 
> I've changed some of the details around so if certain aspects are off from the film versions/comic book canon, forgive me. I needed it to work for storyline purposes. Also, Liam is Captain Britain in this version but he's still a bit Steve Rogers.
> 
> WARNING: There are some scenes of violence throughout the fic. Also, there are a few character deaths or references to dead characters. Nothing too sad I hope.
> 
> Title comes from "Perth" by Bon Iver (thanks for all of the inspiration)

 

 

 

_It’s in this moment, in the dark of this still cabin, Liam considers how much he actually might_ hate _Zayn Malik_.

_Right here, like the tip of a flame in his chest and a churning down in his stomach, Liam thinks about it._

_With this boy unconscious in his arms, on a lumpy bed with wrinkled sheets and a heavy afghan thrown over their exhausted bodies.  The pale bluish light from the center of Zayn’s chest sets a soft glow over his sharp cheekbones and creates a fuzziness across his eyelids.  Half of his fringe falls heavy over his forehead, a scratch with dried blood – still fresh, even if it’s been enough time to heal – along the middle of his bottom lip and a jagged cut on his temple._

_He’s got just enough stubble along his jaw to prickle beneath Liam’s fingertips when they brush at a bruise.  Liam’s arm, the one trapped beneath Zayn’s lithe weight with his head in the crook of Liam’s elbow, feels sharp and heavy._   Too much pressure, _he thinks, but he can’t tug it from beneath Zayn._

_He’ll wake up._

_And then Liam will realize, more vehemently, how much he truly hates this boy with a usually cocky grin and a deliberate tongue always licking at his pink lips._

_Because Zayn Malik is a bit of an arrogant asshole, even if Liam hates using words like that._

_But the cabin is quiet, aside from a dying fire and the hazy sounds outside.  All Liam can hear is Zayn’s soft, ragged breathing and he can still smell Zayn’s expensive cologne, the cigarette smoke on his skin, the tart alcohol he likes –_

_Underneath that, the soft soap he uses, the waxy hair product, the cherry floating in his last drink at the bar._

_He flinches when Zayn’s breathing catches in his chest.  Liam narrows his eyes at him and thinks_ , _for the_ tenth _time, he shouldn’t have bothered to save Zayn’s life._

_Liam is a soldier.  He’s everything Zayn Malik has never been; will never be.  He knows what courage means and it’s not flaunting money to a million_ ‘yes _men’ or posing for a dozen magazines to prove a point._

_And maybe that’s why Liam hates Zayn – because Zayn got to live the life Liam never did._

_Or, possibly, it’s because Zayn and Liam are just like this – fighting for a freedom from life but never quite winning the battle._

 

++

 

It’s always the same dream.

Nothing but grainy old black and white footage in his mind.  Hazy static on repeat.  Gritty images from an old projector like the one back at the Regal on High Street.

He can see the explosions like self-destructing stars.  Empty shells by his feet.  Mounds of fallen soldiers.  Shredded Union Jacks amongst a burial of forgotten men.

It’s almost always the same moment that hits him thickest – _Andy_.

He can’t breathe but he manages through, every single time.

It’s nearing the edge of the war.  It was a bitter winter in Germany that year.  He can still feel it all along his skin, under his uniform – loose-fitted blues and reds and whites.  A shield latched onto his back.  His visibly smoky breath in front of him, his men behind him.

A train hurtling down icy tracks towards something unknown – no, towards _Hydra_.

He can still hear the rattle of the rails, the wheels crackling along the steel.  He can still hear his own voice loud in his ears.  The one begging for Andy to _‘hold on, please, for God’s sake, hold on.’_

His arm strains to hold on, muscles pulling tight around his bones.  He can’t find the leverage to pull him up.  Andy dangling from the car, nothing but snow banks and a frozen river below.  Too much space.

His fingers are still a little numb from losing grip.

It’s a blurry, chaotic vision from there.  Andy slips away and his reach is not far enough to pull him back.

He loses Andy and all of his memories after that.

Liam always wakes up with a jolt.  The sheets are always tangled around his kicking legs and his skin is always shiny with sweat no matter how low he turns down the thermostat.  His voice gives out before he can shout.  There’s a shock of tears burning his eyelids with fingers pulling at the sheets, knuckles going pale and white from the tension.

Electricity in his veins.  A sharp burn on his lungs.

He always wakes to a bedroom he barely knows, a time he hasn’t found his footing in.  A world without Andy Samuels.

His fingers stay numb for hours afterwards and he shakes back to sleep, curled in on himself in a bed he still can’t get used to.

Liam hates himself almost every second before he takes that last long breath to drift back to sleep.

 

++

 

Liam runs the same path every morning.

His flat is far enough from the city that he can find a long stretch of empty sidewalk to cover.  He takes in a deep breath after fixing his trainers and watches the sky for a long moment, tasting this new oxygen on his tongue, before he clears his head and strides out in a full-on sprint.

It’s the same sixteen kilometers without breaking much of a sweat.

He’s still not used to this city – _this world_ , actually.  London is nothing like it was seventy years ago.

Nothing about this world is like it was seventy years ago.

Still, he evens out his breathing and keeps running.  He doesn’t feel the burn along his bones like he did before – he stutters a little but keeps going.  He’s almost forgotten that boy – the one who was more bones than muscle.  Massive brown eyes and sunken in cheeks who stammered every time he spoke.  With the dodgy haircut.  With the poorly kidney and the breathing problems and this unmanageable determination to be _something_.

To make his parents proud of their boy.

He remembers, fondly, being _just Liam_.  Andy’s scrawny best mate.  Struggling to fit into his regulation boots and grinning all while getting his hair buzzed off for boot camp.  Dopey smiles while training, struggling through push-ups and daily runs around the camp grounds in full uniform.  Always the last one to finish, the one they all mocked loudly while he wiped the mud off of his face.

He tries not to think too hard about that world – about _that Liam_.

“Good morning Captain!” Charlie, the paperboy with the snapback and shiny new bicycle, always calls out as he throttles down the sidewalk just after sunrise.

Liam grins at him, sucking in a quick breath when Charlie salutes him with one hand on the handlebars.

“Lovely morning, Mr. Payne,” Mrs. Crowley, the elderly woman with soft grey hair selling flowers on the corner, says every morning when he jogs by.

He bites down on a smile, nodding.

“Captain!” Carl, with his bum leg and ill-fitting clothes, salutes when Liam strides by his shop.  His father served in the war, in the field Liam recalls, and there’s this protective pride on his face whenever Liam acknowledges him.

This part of the world feels _familiar_ – quiet, soft, like back home.  Like his old neighborhood in Wolverhampton.

He hasn’t been back to that house since taking his first breath out of the ice – not even to the street his parents raised him on.

His hands always start to shake at the thought.  He balls them into fists to control it, scrunching his brow like he used to when he couldn’t figure out a math problem.  Or when reading about Greek mythology.  But all of it still gets to him –

He never got to tell Ruth goodbye.  His last words to Nicola – _‘I’ll be home for Christmas, Nic, I swear I will.  And we’re gonna win this war, I swear’_ – echoes in his mind, on repeat.

Liam knows they both married off, never left Wolverhampton.  Neither of them ever had any children but they were _happy_.  People tell him their gravesites are beautiful.  A true soldier’s memorial right next to his parents.

He’s never seen them.  He thinks, regretfully, he’s probably buried somewhere next to them under all of that heavy rock and dirt.

Liam hauls in another deep breath of cool London air and keeps running.  He just keeps running.

His jog always ends at a small coffee shop near his flat.  It’s tiny, with two tables outside for warm weather and a menu handwritten in chalk with daily specials and greetings.  Cloth napkins and that heady aroma that Liam loves best about this side of the city.

“Having your tea the same way this morning, Captain – “

“Just Liam,” Liam smiles at Mrs. Byrne, nodding once.

She’s an older woman with wrinkles around her eyes when she smiles, a frilly apron, that motherly look he remembers from a long, long time ago.  It’s an unconscious thing – the way he only stops in when she’s there, only ever sits at a corner table and lets her tell him stories about what London was like when she was young.

She grins back at him from behind the counter, nodding with him.  “Of course, dear,” she giggles, dusting her hands off on the apron.  “Liam.  Though, to this country, you will always be Captain Britain.”

He knows.

It’s all he ever hears.  The newspaper clippings and the old footage reels and him standing shoulder to shoulder with Andy, after the serum, in that same uniform of reds and whites and dark blues.  Somewhere, in that war, he lost more than just Andy.

He lost _Liam Payne_.  He gained Captain Britain.

But Liam is not certain if that is an honor or just another grainy piece of footage from another life he barely remembers.

He takes the steaming cup of tea from her fingers and escorts Mrs. Byrne to their favorite table, clutching her hand and listening to the same repeated stories just to forget it all.  It feels that easy, even though he knows it never really is.

 

++

 

Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.  They call themselves SHIELD.  When he first woke from the ice – after that first long breath, after his muscles recovered, after they tried to make him comfortable with their _lies_ – they promised him this place would feel like home.

He’s watched _the Wizard of Oz_ , twice now, since being awake.

This place feels nothing like a home.

SHIELD headquarters is located in the heart of London, standing in a tall glass building next to the Thames.  It’s almost unnoticeable to any normal city dweller but it’s still one of those curious buildings that no one just walks by without taking a second glance.  Not with the space it takes up and the constant flow of black suits in and out of it.

The kind of place that looks too posh for a military operation but that’s the thing – Liam isn’t sure _what_ exactly SHIELD is.

He strides into the main lobby with his duffle bag slung over one shoulder, his shield strapped across his spine.  He knows it’s the most recognizable thing about him – _the shield_ – but he keeps his head low, his shoulders tight, his bottom lip twisted between his teeth as he nods at a few passing agents.

Liam doesn’t quite fit in.  Then again, he never really did.  Anywhere.

He doesn’t dress like them, either.  Just a plain white shirt, loose jeans with shreds around the knees, heavy boots that remind him of trenches and foreign landscape.  A watch around his wrist – like his grandfather, like his father – that doesn’t work but it makes him feel _safe_.

It’s the only thing that makes his feel safe, besides the shield.

“Captain.”

Liam looks up, raising an eyebrow before offering up a soft smile.

“Agent Calder,” he says, his voice gone rough from the tea and damp air outside.

She shoots him a half-smirk.  “ _El_ – “

Liam nods quickly, pinching his bottom lip with his teeth.  “Right, sorry.  Old habits.”

Eleanor grins at him, tucking a few loose strands from her ponytail behind her ear.  She’s in uniform – he’s never seen her out of it – and all of the black strapped tightly around her small frame makes her look imposing.  He finds her kind and a bit soft behind the eyes but he’s seen her in combat.

Agent Calder is far from the words _kind_ and _soft_ with a gun or a knife in her hand.

“Bloody brilliant job with that last mission in St. Petersburg,” she comments.  She tilts her head to smile at him, thumbing over her tablet to clear the screen.  “You saved twenty more civilians.  Making history all over again.”

There’s a sting of blush trying to rise along his cheeks but he refuses to look flustered around her.  Instead, he smiles politely and nods back at her.  His free hand rises to press along the nape of his neck, another old habit, while his boots scuff along the clean floors.

He glances down at the crest below his feet – the SHIELD emblem.  A bird with stretched wings.  It’s supposed to represent the freedom he fought for and he’s still not sure he won that battle.

A collection of agents cheer at him as they pass, patting his shoulder and wolf-whistling.

He thinks to hide behind his shield.  He hasn’t earned their appreciation.  Still, he shoots them a sheepish look before turning back to Eleanor.

She smirks at him like she understands but holds a finger to her lips like it’s their secret.

He’s always liked Eleanor, he’s certain of it.

The sun beams down through all of the glass windows, spreading wide over all of the white floors, across the shiny front desks.  It beats a healthy warmth across the back of his neck and angles off Eleanor’s cheeky smile.  It’s the kind of scene he’s seen in pictures, in paintings.  He’s still not used to it but he enjoys it.

“I think Tomlinson has been looking for you,” she says, making a small face before giggling.

Liam nods again, shrugging his duffle bag higher on his shoulder.  His knuckles brush the smooth edge of his shield – _comfort_ – before he takes a small breath in.

“Mission?”

“Not that I know of,” Eleanor hums, wrinkling her smile a little.

“Trouble?” he wonders.  He drags his heel along the floor, almost marking the clean floor.  He doesn’t know why but he needs to know there’s a little imperfection behind this place.  The _visible_ kind.

“With him?” Eleanor laughs, a hiccupping sound she tries to cover by hiding her mouth behind her tablet.  “Always.”

Liam snorts, a lazy, crooked smile smoothing over his mouth.

“M’sure he knows where to find me,” Liam grins, fingers tightening around the strap of his bag.  He motions towards the lifts.

Eleanor smirks, a cheeky look he thinks she perfected as a child.  “I’ll screen all transmissions for you until you finish.  Enjoy yourself.”

She steps aside with a smile.  He bites down on his lip again, giving her a small wave as he moves forward.  He watches the sunlight halo behind her and it just makes her smile a bit more affectionate.  It fuzzes the edges of her face and her strong shoulders drop a little when he’s further away.

This place doesn’t quite feel like home but she makes it easier.

 

++

 

Liam feels it behind his knuckles – the tension.  It spreads from the muscles of his shoulders, down his chest, wide like an eagle’s wings over his spine.  But he keeps punching.  He keeps swinging and sticking his punches until the tension goes numb.

It’s all he knows to do.

It’s a mantra, out loud or in his head – _fight, fight, fight_.

In a corner of SHIELD, where the windows are dusted and the sun feels artificial compared to the cheap yellow lighting, he fights.  In an old gym that most of the agents don’t even bother using, he finds his quiet.  He finds his –

_Fight, fight, fight_.

He was raised like this – barely able to fight off bullies who pushed him around, tossed him into cheap metal garbage bins.  Shoved him into brick walls.  Left him bloody and bruised.  But he never stood down from a fight.  He didn’t win any, either.

But Andy was always right there, picking him up off the wet concrete, straightening out his clothes.  Stroking a damp washcloth over his face so his mum wouldn’t notice the bruises until the next day.  Trying to teach him how to _duck_ rather than how to throw a proper uppercut.  Taking the piss at him because _‘no pretty bird is gonna want some scrawny bloke like y’self if you’re all cut up and bloody, mate, so quit picking fights’_ but he never stopped Liam.

Andy just bloodied his own fists knocking the bullies about after they finished with Liam.

Because he wanted Liam to stand up with _pride_ for taking on the challenge.  For trying to fight.

He doesn’t notice the heavy bag is leaking sand into a tiny pile on the mats until the seam down the middle starts to shred and separate.  It makes the reverb weaker.  The sound is just a thud now but he loses focus on that.

Liam just keeps slamming his taped fists into the bag until everything goes colorless.

He keeps seeing the war in flashes.  The dead bodies lining the dirt.  Andy falling from his grip.  Nazi soldiers dying for an unjust cause.  The Red Skull mocking him.  The icy water before the plane crashes into it.

The bag breaks with him huffing over it.  Sweat dampens his brow and his hair falls flat, almost long enough to slip into his eyes.  His muscles pound under his skin but he can’t feel it.

All he knows is _fight_.

“Y’know, for an extinct species,” Liam can see him from a corner of his blurry vision, approaching slowly, “you sure are fit, old man.”

Liam drags the back of his wrist over his forehead, cleaning the sweat off.  He cools the adrenaline in his blood, smothers the tension until it relaxes through his muscles.  It takes a couple of pulls of clean air before he feels calm again.

He drags his eyes over to Louis.  He thinks, of all of the things about Louis, it’s easiest to remember his smile.  It’s always a bit misshapen, like he’s seconds away from doing something criminal.  A little crooked but perfect on his face.  It sharpens the blue of his eyes and makes his fringe almost annoying when it falls a little too closely to his eyelashes.

His clothes never fit – _on purpose_ , Liam is sure.  Always too tight along his skin, like a second layer of flesh.  Liam thinks they should be restraining but not with Louis.  He practically glides in them.  Smooth gymnastic moves, curls around his attackers and snaps necks without ripping a seam.

That might be the second most memorable thing about him – Louis is quite lethal.  Guns and hand-to-hand combat.  A close range time bomb.

“Widow,” Liam huffs, still trying to settle the way his lungs contract around words.

Louis presses a hand to his chest like he’s affronted.  He shoots off a mock frown, stepping closer.  “Oi,” he groans but his lips tilt up into that mischievous grin, “So formal this morning, Payno.”

Liam can’t help his smirk when he looks away.  He licks away the sweat from his upper lip, shuffling the broken bag aside.  He likes Tomlinson.

He doesn’t _trust_ him but he likes him.

“Stop pretending to care,” Liam teases, taking a quick swig of cold water from a bottle by his duffle bag.  He wipes at his mouth with his fingers, looking up through his eyelashes when Louis shrugs.

“You’re quite rude for someone raised in a time of proper gents,” Louis says with a wink, leaning against a steel beam.

Liam smears a smile into a towel, patting away the sweat from his face.  He shakes off the tight pull around his shoulders before walking to the carefully lined spare heavy bags he has on another mat.  He lifts one without flinching.  He hauls it over his shoulder, shaking his head at the way Louis gapes at him for a moment.

It’s all the serum – the strength, the speed, the stamina, the fluidity.  That electric pulse under his skin that never goes away.  The way he’s still twenty years old, _physically_ , even though he’s somewhere close to –

He’s lost count, really.  It’s over ninety, he’s almost certain.

“Are you actually concerned?” Liam wonders, replacing the old heavy bag on the chain.  He takes a few quick jabs at it, testing its durability.  Good enough, he thinks.

Louis rolls his eyes.  “About you?  Not quite,” he snorts, tilting his head.  “Not when I read in the papers that there’s some freakish bloke in the States climbing the fucking buildings and claiming to have been bitten by radioactive insects.”

Liam makes a face at him.  Louis is quite manic.  Lethal but absolutely mad most days.

“Speaking of which,” Louis grins while Liam carefully peels the tape off of his fists.  “Have you thought about asking out Georgia down in Accounting?”

Liam raises an eyebrow at him.  “How does that make you think of – “

“Are you quite finished?” Louis sighs, dramatically, “I heard she likes to bite, okay?  Whatever.  Have you?”

“Nope,” Liam replies quickly.

“Quit being so thick,” Louis grumbles, pushing off the beam.

Liam laughs under a breath.  He rummages through his bag for a spare shirt, neatly folded jeans – he can’t quite escape that side of himself.  Always a soldier, always prepared.

Louis kicks at the row of heavy bags, shuffling them out of place.  Instinctively, Liam wants to fix them.  He freezes and settles his impulses.  He’s not in a mood to have a row with Louis or to be teased about his tendencies.

“C’mon Cap.  You need to get out more,” Louis says in an almost whine.

“I do just fine, mate.  I’m doing quite nicely,” Liam sighs.

“Yes, you’re clearly having a moment,” Louis smirks, waving his hand in front of Liam.  “After all, you were only trapped in ice for seventy years, right?  I’m sure your willy is quite functional and all – “

Liam glares at him, narrowing his eyes and clenching his fists.  Louis’ words die off then but he keeps that same quirked up grin.

“M’not interested, thank you,” he strains out through his teeth.

He hasn’t considered it – _dating_.  Not since waking up.  Not since _her_ , actually.

Liam remembers her almost copper hair, always tied tightly into a bun.  The sharp shade of her red lipstick against her skin, a soft shade of honey.  The neatly pressed uniform she always wore.  The floral scent of her perfume under the heavy scent of gun powder.

He hasn’t said her name since that last promise of a slow dance and a kiss before the crash.

“What about Kathryn from Linguistics?” Louis half-hums at him.  “Weren’t you two flirting over lunch the other day?”

Liam wrinkles his brow towards Louis.  “I was asking if she could pass me the _salt_ , mate.”

“Yeah, well – I’ve given blowjobs for less of a chat, mate, so,” Louis breathes with a lazy shrug.  His fingers reach up to lift that silly fringe from his eyes, steel blue eyes running up and over Liam.

Tomlinson is – Liam can’t figure him out.  He doesn’t think he has the will to even try.

He puffs his chest out for a rough spurt of breath.  “Shouldn’t you be somewhere troubling Styles?” he suggests, holding that breath until it burns just slightly.  “How’s _that_ going?”

Louis smirks, unmoved.  He’s good at hiding his cards.  He’s better at calling a bluff than any agent Liam knows here.

“It’s complicated.”

Liam grins back.  “Well, just a bit, innit?”

“I don’t piss around with colleagues,” Louis replies, his voice still even and calm.

“But you just – “

Louis waves off the rest of his response.  He takes a few strong kicks at the heavy bag until the chain shakes and almost gives way again.

“A bit of a diva, are we?” he huffs, turning back to Liam before fixing his hair again.  The dirty shine of the sun, still uneven and a stiff mixture of orange-gold, rounds off that very careful look on Louis’ face.

He never really gives himself away.  Not to anyone but Liam, sometimes.

“I’m actually here for a reason, Payno.  The boss wants to see you,” Louis adds.

Liam’s shoulders drop a little.  He rubs calloused fingertips over his rotating wrists, trying to shake off the tension.

“Another mission?”

“Don’t quite know.  You know Director Higgins doesn’t share much.  Not quite in his character.”

_Irony_ , Liam wants to tell him that’s what it is.  The words rubbed rough off Louis’ tongue like he’s an open book.  Like Liam knows anything other than the bits of Louis’ life that he lets out, the secrets written in a stack of files no one ever gets to see.

_Cold-blooded killer_ , he once heard.  A few times.  In the lift, from other agents, from the looks people give Louis when he strolls so smugly through the halls of SHIELD like he already knows what they say.

“Of course not,” Liam mutters.

He only knows what they _want_ him to know.  It’s just another aspect of this new world Liam is uncomfortable with.

His fingers curl reflexively around his water bottle for another long swallow.  The plastic crunches loud and heavy in the gym and Louis looks unimpressed, leaning on another steel beam and watching the sun behind the dust and dirt on the windows.  He angles his chin a little higher like he’s lost on it all.

Like he’s not meant to sit in the sun – all of his crimes too stained in other people’s blood to earn him the freedom of little things like this.

Liam shakes his head, hauling up his duffle and turning to leave.

“What about Sandra over in Marketing?” Louis calls and Liam can hear the smirk in his voice.  “I heard she’s a right fine time.  Fancy a bit of tea with her?”

“Give it up, Tomlinson,” Liam smiles, not bothering to look back over his shoulder at him.

“You can’t always _work out_ alone, Cap.  There are over sixty million people in England,” Louis argues but his voice is light and teasing, the way Liam expects and enjoys.  “Just pick _one_.  Or three.  Threesomes are smashing, old man.”

Liam shrugs his bag higher on his shoulder and laughs quietly into the crook of his elbow.  He can’t hear the rest of Louis’ words but the chaos buzzes in his ears.  It prickles down his skin until he relaxes.

For a second, he manages to forget that this world he doesn’t recognize is littered with dishonesty and secrets.

He definitely likes Louis.

 

++

 

Director Higgins is trenches and boots.  All black.  Simple, like the usual tone of his voice and the interior of his office – all glass, marble floors, clean walls, a universe of technological stuff that Liam doesn’t pretend to understand – and Liam thinks, distantly, he respects that.

He’s former military.  A General, Liam thinks, but the story always changes from agent to agent.  Discharged, though Liam’s not sure if it was honorable or not but Higgins commands reverence.

Somewhere, for some reason, he’s _earned_ it.

He’s got a sharp scar down his left cheek from some war.  Scorched pink skin stitched over his usually stern facial expression.  Wide shoulders, a stiff spine, a strong lift to his chin.  His favorite Smith & Wesson always tucked neatly under his long coat.

“You can stop standing there and come in, Captain.”

Liam doesn’t startle at the sound of his voice.  He’s been hovering in the doorway for a moment, watching.  But he’s been quiet, unnoticeable, calculating the volume of his breaths while waiting.

He doesn’t think anyone else would’ve even noticed – no one except Higgins.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Liam wonders, moving inward slowly.

Higgins is standing in front of one of the floor-length windows, his office seventy floors above London.  He’s looking down over the city – a king watching his empire.  Liam can see his smile in the reflection just before Higgins turns.

“Captain.  Always a pleasure,” he drawls with that thick accent he refuses to shake.  He motions for Liam to sit.  Liam remains standing.

“Bloody incredible job on that last mission,” Higgins says with half of a laugh, shaking his head at Liam’s stiff posture.

“Thank you, sir,” Liam says, brief and calm.

Higgins nods.  He slides into his own leather chair, leaning back.  He twines his fingers together, humming.

“Brought some great attention to some of this world’s leaders about our little program – “

Liam frowns immediately.  He’s not a puppet.  A showpiece.  He remembers the war – he remembers what Captain Britain was supposed to represent.

Just some cheap gimmick after they were unable to replicate the Super Solider serum.

Liam thought he was one of a kind – they didn’t agree.

“Is that what I am, sir?  Publicity?” he asks, his throat tightening around the last word.

Higgins leans further back in his chair until it squeaks.  He snorts under his breath but it’s not condescending.  It’s thoughtful.

“Not at all, Captain.  You’re a soldier, yeah?”

Liam folds his arms behind his back, almost pulling to attention like he’s on the line.  Old habits.

“Yes, sir.  I’m here to protect our country.  To defend this world,” Liam replies, confident.

“This world,” Higgins repeats, nodding slowly.  “The world is a massively different place than the one you remember.  We might’ve won a few battles but the war isn’t quite finished.”

Higgins motions toward an electronic kettle whistling softly.  “Tea?”

Liam shakes his head, standing taller.

Higgins nods, sipping slowly from his already made cup.  “Have you given any t’ought to our chat ‘bout the Avengers Initiative?”

Liam gives him a carefully blank look.  He remembers it, vaguely – somewhere between that mission in Blackpool and that recon trip to Paris.  Honestly, he hasn’t given it a moment of thought.

“Sir, I don’t think I’d be a proper fit,” he replies with a quick swallow.

“I disagree,” Higgins says with a hard smile, wrinkles around his mouth and the scar shifting.  “A team of highly-gifted – “

“I’m a soldier, sir.  Not a SHIELD agent.”

“I was going to say _people_ ,” Higgins corrects with a lifted brow.  He lowers his cup, leaning forward until the chair squeaks out a groan.  “You’re a person, Payne.  This is a chance to bridge the gap between civilians and soldiers.  To create somet’ing larger.  The Avengers Initiative is intended to stop world threats.  Things far worse than what you’ve already witnessed, Payne.”

Liam doubts that.  He’s seen monsters.  He’s seen the road map of dead bodies.  He’s watched his best mate fall from his grip.

The scratch of the ceramic cup across Higgins’ glass desk distracts Liam.  He blinks off those flashes of grey memories but the burden weighs down his shoulders.

“Trust me,” Higgins says with a smile, “you’d fit.”

Liam narrows his eyes for a second because he doesn’t think he trusts anyone.  Not anymore.

“We’d be quite the weird bunch,” he shrugs, chewing the inside of his lip.  “I’m a bit better solo.”

Higgins sighs softly.  He adjusts the sleeves of his coat before he presses his elbows onto the desk.  “I understand,” he starts, that space of skin between his eyebrows scrunching.  “Never get too close to anyone, right?  ‘Cause of Samuels, yeah?”

Liam flinches.  It’s uncontrollable and, briefly, he wishes he was Tomlinson.  He wishes he was good at hiding it.  Instead, he squints at Higgins.

Higgins leans back, crossing his legs with twiddling thumbs on his chest.  “I already know, Captain.  I’ve read the files.  I’ve checked the archives.  Wasn’t your fault.”

Liam doesn’t respond.  He grips the words so tight in his chest that all of his oxygen leaks out of his blood.  All he hears is whirls and explosions and his own voice calling out for Andy.  He can’t shake it but he tries so bleeding _hard_ that all of his muscles reshape like an armor around his organs.

“You work well with Tomlinson, don’tcha.” Higgins says it like a statement rather than a question.

“Tomlinson doesn’t work well with _anyone_ ,” Liam retorts.

Higgins snorts.  He reaches for his tea again.  “Has he ever told you why they call him the Black Widow?”

Liam’s never bothered to ask.  He figures anything Louis wants to share, he will.

Louis doesn’t share anything.

“Every partner he’s ever had has died in the field,” Higgins admits behind the lip of his cup.  He lowers it a little.  “He’s a survivor but he has a track record.  Well, ‘til you, that is.”

Liam scrunches his brow in thought.  “But he’s worked with Styles.”

Higgins grins at him.  “Ask Styles and Tomlinson about Moscow sometime.”

He doesn’t clarify after that – Liam doesn’t expect him to.  Instead, Higgins finishes his tea and pulls a tablet from a pile of files cluttering his desk.  He swipes through a few screens before turning it on Liam with a raised eyebrow.

“Have ye heard of Zayn Malik of Malik Industries?” he asks, shoving the tablet in Liam’s direction.

Liam reaches out, palming it.  He drags his fingers lazily over the windows, scrolling through all of the usual media reports.

“Not really.  They’re a weapons distributor, correct?” Liam inquires while looking up.

“That’s a small division of the company,” Higgins agrees, twisting in his chair.  The sky outside of London is greyer but the streak of a hidden sun beats through the glassy windows over his profile.  “They deal more in technology advances and science.  Malik is the son of Yaser, former head of the company.  He was a brilliant man.  Fascinating.  A major ally to SHIELD.”

Liam thumbs through a few more windows, expanding them to view pictures of Yaser – aged face, wide smile, dark hair, crinkled brown eyes.  He finds a few of a boy – small, wiry, eyes like the sun dipping into desert sands – always by his side.  The boy goes from hugging around Yaser’s knee to tugging on his belt loop to being tucked into Yaser’s chest, inky hair pressed to expensively tailored suit jackets.

“Zayn is a child prodigy or summat.  Massively bright, that kid,” Higgins continues.  He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees.  “Graduated from Cambridge at sixteen.  Took over his father’s company at eighteen from his father’s business partner, Ben Winston.”

It’s all right there – on the tablet.  A collection of information Liam usually reads over before a mission.  It’s usually Calder who hands it over, brief details and directions.

But this time it’s Higgins and Liam wonders –

“What does this have to do with SHIELD?”

Higgins sighs lowly.  He clears his throat roughly, looking up.  “Some very important technology and weapons have been stolen from Malik Industries.  Distributed amongst black market dealers across the globe.”

“So Malik is selling to terrorists?” Liam asks stiffly.  His teeth catch his bottom lip, pinching.

“Not at all,” Higgins replies with a worried brow.  His knuckles rap on the glass of his desk.  “Malik might be a bit pretentious and spoiled but he’s hardly a criminal.  Read up on him and what happened in Dubai.”

Liam tries not to shoot him a skeptical look but –

He glances back down at the tablet.  Just quick flashes of _‘son of billionaire attacked in Dubai; near death while father is assassinated in London’_ until his lip feels raw from his teeth.

Higgins pushes out of his chair, leaning over his desk.  Underneath the layers of rough skin and scars and a heavy brow, there’s almost a plea in Higgins’ eyes before he says, “He’s a mate of a mate, Payne.  If that technology gets out – “

There’s a pause.  Something hardens in Higgins’ expression again.

“I want you to watch over him and find out what’s going on,” he clarifies.

His fingers streak over the glass.  There’s nothing but smoke and ash in Higgins’ voice like he’s trying to bury something.  Secrets.  Liam learned a long time ago not to question authority but –

“I’m not a babysitter, sir,” he chews off, passing back the tablet.

“No,” Higgins smirks while standing straight again.  “You’re a soldier.  A protector.  So _protect him_.”

Liam feels his mouth twitch, a refusal thick like blood on his tongue.  It keeps stirring and stirring – _this place is nothing like home_ – but he bottles it.  He breathes out through his nose and tilts his chin up.

“Horan and the science division are already working on tracking the weapons.  Summat ‘bout gamma rays and radiation.  I didn’t bother asking,” Higgins huffs, moving away from the desk.  He stands by the window, pressing a palm to the cold surface.  “But we need Malik.  We need him to _willingly_ help us.”

“Sir – “

“It’s an order, Captain,” Higgins hisses, widening his shoulders in the reflection.  “No excuses.  We need him.”

 

++

 

“Quite the palace Malik keeps, yeah?”

Louis is right – Malik Towers is quite the sight.  A bit theatrical and shiny but Liam thinks the aesthetic would be pleasing for someone who was into that sort of architecture.

Liam prefers something a little cozier but still –

It’s quite beautiful.

There’s shiny floors and old paintings on the walls.  There’s a holographic greeting from Yaser in the center of the lobby.  Persian rugs leading to the lift, this soft scent of warmth rather than the cold, clean, bleached aroma of SHIELD.  Interns on skateboards and women in business suits and vintage cars parked in the heart of the lobby.

There’s a tall marble statue of a smiling Yaser near the main desk, a _‘Live for who and what you love – and never compromise your beliefs for anything or anyone’_ etched into marble at the base.

There’s nothing modern about this place, not even with half of the employees casually dressed amongst the robotics moving about the room and flashing flatscreens displaying the progression of the company for all visitors to view.  It’s a sight, really.

This place is nothing like SHIELD.  It’s still not like home but _closer_ , he thinks.

“We’re on a mission, Widow,” he says under his breath, lowering his head, trying to blend in with the crowd of people moving throughout the lobby.

“To protect a _civilian_ ,” Louis says with a grin.  “Loosen up, you nob.”

They slide into the lifts unnoticed.  Liam presses into the stained wooden walls, breathing a little easier.  He prefers tactile missions, ones that draw less attention.  Raiding bunkers and saving lives.  Not – he doesn’t enjoy the _attention_.  He prefers the covert stuff.

Louis grins across from him, smug and quite the bastard with the way he keeps eyeing Liam.  He doesn’t look troubled by any of this – he never does.

Liam ignores him, watching the numbers light up on the panel.

“What do you know about him?  Zayn?” he asks, gnawing at his lip.

Louis shrugs, crossing his arms.  “Billionaire playboy before he was properly sixteen.  Fucking genius – “ Liam frowns at his word choice and considers making Louis drop a few quid in Eleanor’s swear jar back at SHIELD, “Philanthropist or summat.  Gives to charities and shit.”

Liam groans, knocking the back of his head on the wall.  Louis is quite _insufferable_ in these moments.

“Proper slag, too.  Bunch of one-offs to pass the time.  At least, I hear.  Mate gets around these days,” Louis chuckles, kicking a foot up on the wall behind him.  “Guess he has a bit of a _daddy’s boy_ – “

“Tomlinson,” Liam sighs.  The lift lurches a little the higher it climbs, quiet steel sliding as it glides.  “Get on it with it.”

He feels weightless and impatient all at once.  He’s not very good at concealing it from Louis so he glares at the numbers as they light up on the wall.

“The kid is a bit manic, okay?  Out of control ever since his father was killed,” Louis says, the cut of his voice softened by his eyes.  “Loves the power, though.”

Liam grins, feels the tickle of a chuckle at the back of his throat.  “Sounds like you fancy him.”

“Bullshit.  Absolute bullshit,” Louis scoffs, scrunching his brow.  “Malik’s not my type – much too egotistical.”

Liam laughs to himself.  He finds it amusing that Louis has found someone even more self-absorbed than himself.

“Which reminds me,” Louis grins wryly and Liam feels his stomach drop from something other than the lift, “What about Jackie?  The waitress at the café you love by your flat.”

Liam flexes an eyebrow at him, mouth tilting up.  “Have you been following me again Tomlinson?” he inquires, both eyebrows shooting up when Louis blurts out a laugh.

It echoes, rattling in their small cage of metal and wood walls.

“I’ve much better things to do,” Louis sniffs.  Something devious curls over his lips.  “But you really should tidy up your flat.”

“Horrible,” Liam laughs.

“And they have _things_ to help with your,” Louis drags his eyes over Liam’s crotch and the rush of blood to Liam’s cheeks isn’t associated with the drop of the lift when it starts to slow, “well, nightly _Liam Time_.  Proper porn now, mate.  Loads of it.  In high-definition.  You can wank off to all kinds of – “

He knows he’s gone pink from the top of his ears all the way down to his heaving chest.  He used to be better at this – when Andy would take the piss at him.  Laughing into each other’s shoulders and teasing about being virgins.

He was so much better at this before the war and the serum and the ice, freezing cold ice.

Liam groans into his shoulder.  One day, he’s going to whack off Louis’ head with his shield, he swears it.

“But about Jackie?” Louis asks after Liam’s managed to hide his flustered expression.

“With the tattoos?” Liam wonders.  He tilts his head at Louis.

Louis beams, nodding.

“Yeah,” Liam laughs, shaking his head.  “Not my type.”

 

++

 

Ms. Watson greets them when they step off the lift.  Liam’s read about her – quite clever, Zayn’s personal assistant, more of a mother-figure since Zayn’s own died years ago.  She’s a warm smile and cups of tea, completely disarming with her charm but Liam knows she’s protective of Zayn.

She’s the voice of her boss when Zayn doesn’t feel like being bothered – which is mostly all of the time.

“Mr. Malik is finishing up a meeting but he’s expecting you,” she smiles from her desk.  “Earl Grey?”

Liam watches the way she moves, careful and calculated.  Like a mother.  A doting mother.  His lips instantly twitch upwards at that.

“No, love, thank you,” Louis replies for them, nudging Liam with an elbow.

She nods, cheeks pink without the make-up.  “Y’can call me Ms. Watson,” she smirks.  She half-turns to Liam, looking a little awed.  “Such a pleasure to meet you, Captain Britain.”

Liam skims a few fingers over the nape of his neck – _old habits_ – smiling politely at her.  His heart picks up a little because he’s still not used to this.  Out a corner of his vision, he can see Louis smirking.

He’s going to take his head clear off, one day.

“Y’know,” Louis drags out, twisting an arm around Ms. Watson’s shoulders to draw her close.  He’s got that quirky smirk he wears when he’s charming his next kill, eyes lit like dancing blue flames.  “I was hoping to get a tour of the facilities, Ms. Watson?  A look at some of the robot stuff?”

“Really?” Ms. Watson grins back.  She’s calling his bluff but Louis won’t let up.

He never does.

Louis wriggles his brows while Liam slumps a little.  “Absolutely,” Louis says, his voice leaning on theatrical, “And with such a beautiful woman as yourself?  Sounds smashing.”

Liam makes a face, that soft skin between his eyebrows scrunching as he folds his arms across his chest.  Louis’ got a tongue that’s acidic and sweet like sour lemon candies.  Yet, it always works in his favor.

Louis waves him off quickly, leading Ms. Watson towards the lifts.  She drags her heels a bit but his lips curl at the corners and she gives in silently.  “You’ll do just fine without me, Payno.”

“ _Widow_ – “

There’s a tight plea in Liam’s voice but Louis ignores it.

“So, Ms. Watson – can I call you Caroline, love?” Louis smiles.

She quickly shoots him an indignant look.  “No, I prefer – “

“Yes, right.  So, _Caroline_ , about Malik’s vacation home in Malibu,” Louis continues as the doors slide open.

Liam reaches up to drag his fingers through his hair, his thumb grazing the buzzed sides.  Louis shoots him that uneven smirk from inside the lift, a small shrug of his shoulders like none of this is calculated or planned.  Like he’s incapable of _strategy_.  A sigh shakes through Liam and he spins on his heels while Louis offers him a small wave of his fingers.

 

++

 

He can still hear Louis’ laughter in his ears, muffled but loud, and maybe that’s why he misses it – the sounds.

The muffled whimper.  The falling glass, the rustling of fabric being shifted.  The tinny giggles like being drunk on fancy liquors.  The soft and the hard mix of voices.

It catches him with a shock like a flash of lightning.

Liam can see the rolled up sleeves, the wrinkled skirt shoved high on a thigh, the ink splattered along a wrist as fingers twist playfully in unruly curls.  The _want_ loud like neon paint on a brick wall.  Even the unstable breaths are almost visible and it’s cruel, the way it looks.

He recognizes Zayn first but the caramel skin perched on the edge of his desk is unfamiliar.

Pink lips on a neck like a vampire, Zayn’s strong hand on her spine, another somewhere under her skirt.  Her hand almost slips into his product-shiny hair but he jerks back at the last second – looking only half offended but carefully covering it with a warning smile.  A quick flick of an eyebrow like she knows better.

Of course she does – Zayn is in control.

She soaks the room with a breathy gasp – Zayn must be a magician because his hands keep disappearing and reappearing until she’s breathless – and Liam narrows his eyes hard at the way Zayn shoots her this smug grin like he already knows.

The spider and the fly.

Liam clears his throat roughly, arms stiff and folded across his chest.

There’s another sharp gasp, this one wound like electricity in a bottle but it’s not from Zayn.  He barely flinches, peering over her shoulder and curls at Liam.  His eyebrows wriggle a little, shiny lips a little swollen – probably more from her teeth than the snogging – before he gradually pulls back.

Zayn snorts, wiping at his mouth with the back of his ink-stained wrist.  The light from the dim sun catches off the metallic of the watch on his other arm while the girl quickly hops off his desk.

She looks startled, abashed but Zayn –

He cocks his lips into a crooked grin, casually fixing his trousers.  His long, strong fingers carelessly adjust the semi sitting lopsided behind the expensive material.

Even from this angle, he looks professional and smart and Louis was completely right.

Shameless and unaffected.  His ego more pronounced than the cock in his trousers.

She scurries to fix his desk, stammering while trying to pick fallen items from the floor.  Her lipstick is smeared like smashed cherries, curls falling in her face.

“Leave it,” Zayn says with this hazy rasp.  His lips quirk right around the corners when he tilts his head to get a look at her bum when she bends over.

He’s ridiculous.

“S’fine, babe,” he chuckles, brushing a careful hand over his quiff.  Even with the product, it looks soft and a little messy.

His white teeth drag along his bottom lip, making it redder and full with the pressure.  He presses down the front of his shirt before shooting Liam a look.  It’s fleeting but his eyes run up and down Liam like –

Liam startles a bit.  Maybe he’s still a little lightheaded and dizzy from the lift because Zayn eyes him like – _no_.

He refocuses his attention to the girl scampering around the office like a lost pup.  She shuffles her heels over the floor, folders and papers piled into her arms as she tries not to trip towards the door.  Their shoulders bump and she looks up through her tangle of curls with apologetic eyes.

Zayn laughs into his fist from behind his desk.  He tightens his loose tie, still holding a piece of his bottom lip with his teeth.

“Oh, love,” he grins, the sun catching on the sharp angle of his cheekbones, “Make sure we have the proposal for the environmental energy board ready for my meeting.  And tell Ms. Watson just tea for lunch today, Laura – “

Her head snaps in his direction while he’s fixing his cuffs.  “ _Leigh-Anne_ ,” she almost growls but he fixes a confused look on his face.  Her shoulders drop, defeated.  “My name is Leigh-Anne, sir.”

Zayn’s fingers catch in his hair.  He gives her a small, almost unnoticeable nod.  “Of course, love,” he says smugly.  “How could I forget such a lovely name?”

She bites at her lip, nervous and twitching.  A frown tugs at her mouth but she lifts her chin enough to hide it.  Her skirt is still twisted crookedly and her top is missing a few buttons but she doesn’t respond.

Leigh-Anne shuffles out of the door and Liam just manages to catch her head dropping as the door gently shuts.

“Liam, right?”

His jaw instinctively tightens at the sound of his name on this boy’s tongue.  Like acid and sugar.  He narrows his eyes at Zayn.  Trust has not been his strongest point since waking up from the ice.

He clears his throat softly this time to try and knock some of the venom from his tone.

“Payne or – “

“Captain Britain, yes?  S’what you prefer?” Zayn offers, grinning.

He’s completely unaffected and a little too cocky but Liam wonders if it’s just a mask.  Probably not but that’s a later debate.

Liam swallows slowly.  He’s known people like Zayn.  Trust doesn’t feel like much of an option.

He grinds his teeth a little, another old habit from childhood, settling the uncommon pulse of his heart and loosening his shoulders.  He takes a few more unwanted steps into Zayn’s massive office and drops his arms to his side.

“I’m here because – “

“SHIELD, right?” Zayn offers, slowly sliding into his chair.  It’s that kind of expensive black leather that has to be imported and the chair bends fluid-like to fit Zayn’s small but strong frame.

Liam doesn’t know why his mind drifts and he thinks Zayn’s built like a swimmer, like a marathon runner.  His clothes are tailored and the strips of ink hidden beneath his sleeves contrasts nicely with his smooth skin, the cut of his jaw.

_Focus, Payne, strategy_ , he tells himself.

“We’re here to offer up our services.  Protection, I s’ppose,” Liam says.  He rocks on his heels a bit when Zayn leans back.  “They’ve got a massive interest in your company.  In _helping_ Malik Industries.”

Zayn lazily lifts an eyebrow.  He seems bored, eyes half-lidded.

“I’ve heard,” he replies in a clipped voice.

“Intelligence tells us you’ve been in some trouble from unwanted parties,” Liam continues.  He squints his eyes at the way Zayn fixes the buttons on his cuffs.

Zayn nods like he’s listening but he yawns softly, keeping his eyes lowered.

“Mr. Malik – “

“Y’know,” Zayn starts, lifting his head.  “I’ve heard of you.  Well, before you were sat on the cover of _the Times_ for being drug out of a massive chunk of ice, that is.”

Liam’s jaw flexes instinctively.  He buries his thoughts to give Zayn a cautiously blank expression.

“Me daada was a part of the science division during the original Super Soldier program.  The one y’came from,” Zayn says.  His pink tongue slips out to lick at his lips, the light gleaming off the shine.  “He spoke highly of what y’did for this country, mate.”

Liam sniffs, nodding.  He watches Zayn lean over the desk and there’s something soft, almost friendly about his smile but he thinks Zayn’s a little more calculated.  He’s got walls, far from transparent, and Liam has no interest in trying to break through them.

Not for curiosity and not for SHIELD either.

“And your father?” Liam wonders.  He stands a bit taller when Zayn leans back.

“What about him?” Zayn huffs, squinting.

Fingers run the soft skin along the nape of Liam’s neck.  His boots dig into the expensive carpet.  Diversion and tactics.  That’s all this is.

“Did he do anything great for this country?” Liam asks.  His fingers skim the seam of his jeans when Zayn’s shoulders go tight.

_Transparent_ , he thinks.

Zayn licks his lips again.  His fingers catch in his hair this time, ruining the crest of his quiff.

“Loads of great things,” Zayn says, his voice tighter, a hiss dragging in his tone.  “He was an amazing man.”

“Amazing men don’t build weapons,” Liam corrects.  He watches the falter in Zayn’s body.  It’s short and muted but Liam’s been trained to look for things like this.

Those little pinpoints in the armor where it cracks.

“They do things for the greater good,” Zayn says, pulling in a deep breath.  “D’you even recognize that anymore?  Now that you’re with SHIELD?”

Liam bites the inside of his mouth.  Careful words sit at the back of his throat.  Nothing but _tactics and diversion_.

Zayn tugs at his collar and there’s flashes of more ink beneath it.  His long fingers trap themselves in his hair again, gentle pull, his annoyance showing.  Liam sees the spot of sweat at his temple, he watches the color of his skin pink from frustration.  Half-lidded eyes that are really just flecks of autumn hue – burnt caramel and gold – with a wrinkled brow.

“SHIELD tries to make _peace_ – “

Zayn laughs at that.  Unabashed and loud.  He tilts his jaw up when Liam narrows his eyes.

“They teaching you how t’be an _honest man_ , Liam?” Zayn scoffs.

Liam’s mouth twitches but he calms that spike of adrenaline in his blood.  It’s like stepping on a bed of glass.

“At least I haven’t been building weapons for killers,” Liam counters.

It’s a wet smack, Zayn’s sweaty palm slamming against his desk.  The chair kicks back when he stands and everything in his muscles, beneath the expensive half-suit, goes rigid.

“My baba never sold to _murderers_!” he shouts, his breathing ragged.

An avalanche of broken glass.

He thinks it’s remarkable, the sun against Zayn’s harden face.  The misplaced strands of his hair, the flush of his cheeks.  The shine over his eyes and the way that suit keeps stretching against his steadfast muscles.

It’s almost inhuman and distracting.  Like a diversion, something that makes him lower his eyes to refocus.

“He was a good man,” Zayn mutters.  Liam can hear the frown in his voice, not even bothering to look.

He nicks his teeth over his bottom lip.  His next few breaths go a little shallow but he ignores it to drag his eyes over Zayn.  He’s at the large window behind his desk, watching the city below, just like Higgins.

Except, this boy looks wounded and discouraged and nothing like the smug bastard Liam remembers from earlier.  Well, almost.

“Then why ruin the Malik name?” Liam asks because it’s all just on the surface.  Flesh wounds.  No one is that calculated and cocky without justification.  Or too much power.

Zayn’s spine stretches but he doesn’t look back.

“Why deal with foreign parties?  Militaries bent on destroying other countries?” he continues.

“Dunno what you take me for, Captain,” Zayn huffs, turning on his heels, “but what our buyers do with our merchandise once it is bought doesn’t concern me.  We’ve done loads to advance medical procedures, like, and to help countries ravaged by war.”

“So killing is – “

Zayn’s lips purse instantly.  There’s no disdain in his look but, once more, he looks uninterested.

“M’not, like, interested in whatever SHIELD is offering,” he quickly says, walking back to his desk.  He thumbs at his phone, idly looking around.  “Don’t need protection.  Or whatever.  I’ve loads of security.  There’s nothing I _need_.”

_Besides a strong fist against that perfect jaw_ , Liam thinks.  His heart flutters and his head fills with static because – bloody hell, what is he _thinking_?

And why is he watching the way those trousers shift around Zayn’s arse when he crosses the other side of his desk?

“JARVIS?” Zayn calls, clearing his throat.

“Yes sir?”  It’s an automated voice out of nowhere and it shocks Liam, just slightly.

“Ring Ms. Watson for me,” Zayn sighs, chewing on his lip.

The door budges open and all of Liam’s thoughts scramble in his head.  His muscles stiffen all over as Ms. Watson strides in, alone.

“I’ve a jet to catch, Captain,” Zayn says, his voice careless as he fixes his watch.

“The flight plan has been uploaded and the jet is awaiting you on the tarmac, sir.”

Again, the computerized voice and Liam swears he’ll never completely adjust to this world.

Ms. Watson helps Zayn into his jacket, brushing away lint and settling his quiff.  He bats her away with a playful smile before setting hard eyes on Liam.

“I thought you had a meeting?” Liam wonders, his eyebrows lowered.

“I do,” Zayn says sharply, pressing a quick kiss to Ms. Watson’s cheek.  She giggles into his shoulder and Liam can see the connection.  It’s obvious.

“In Nice,” he adds, using one hand to button his jacket while his spare one continues to swipe through his phone.  “Lovely day to you, Liam.”

“It’s – “

Zayn waves him off before he can finish.  He’s stomping out the door, Ms. Watson close behind and Liam glares at the archway for a long minute before sucking in a deep breath.

He wonders, briefly, how much of his dignity and training is left seeping in the carpet underneath his feet because of this boy.

This boy _pretending to be a man_ in expensive suits and fancy offices and a tower too small for his massive ego.

This boy he’s spent the better half of the last few minutes thinking of in ways he’s not used to –

All of his muscles flex in the wrong way again and he resolves to stomp back towards the lifts.

Louis is waiting on the outside, pressed to a wall with a foot kicked up and a broad, trashy grin on his lips.

“How’d it go Payno?” he asks, tilting his head and looking a little too smug.

Liam scowls at him.  Headless Tomlinson he pictures and it drags a laugh on the inside.

“He’s a – “

“Prick,” Louis finishes for him, raising his eyebrows.  “Yeah, I’m aware.  Better you take care of the questioning than me.”

Liam shakes his head and figures throttling Louis and staining this nice carpet with spots of his blood would be rather inappropriate.  Justifiable, _probably_ , but it’s not in his character.

“But he’s quite nice to look at?” Louis teases.

Liam flinches and his cheeks heat up like colliding stars.  Solar flares of intense heat across his face.  Pink like evening sunsets.  He goes hot and flushed and, okay, maybe he could stain the walls with Louis’ leftover blood.

Louis chuckles into his shoulder, rolling his eyes.  Liam hates how he radiates that arrogance without a hint of indignity.

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis says with a half-shrug, blindly pressing the button for the lift, “because we’ve got a mission.”

He leaves it at that, turning to step on the lift and the hesitation to follow sticks to all of Liam’s bones.  He tightens his jaw to unsettle the frown on his lips.  His shoulders go tense as he steps on the lift and he clears his head, for a moment.

Always a soldier.

 

++

 

The uniform is almost the same – the Union jack stretched around the chest like a giant _X_ , the slashes of red and white and heavy blues, the way its shaped to fit him.  It’s tighter around the shoulders.  The material is thicker but malleable like liquid silver right along his skin.  It has a give that allows him a little more movement and he likes that.

The sturdy shield is the same though.  The same alloys.  _Vibranium_ they told him but he’s still not sure what it’s made of.  Besides blood and bullets and a shredded life he only half-remembers.

All of it feels right, except when he looks in the mirror.  Always when he looks in the mirror.

He’s out of place with the stubble along his jaw rather than clean cut.  He doesn’t wear the helmet anymore and his hair is shaven into something like a mohawk but _not quite_.  He can see the honey spot of a birthmark just behind the collar.  It knots up in his stomach, in the shadows, when he drags his eyes over his reflection.

Just that sure surge of blood under his skin reminds him to breathe it in.

He’s still Liam, _somewhere_.  Just not here.

 

++

 

They’re thousands of meters above foreign land, slicing through the clouds like a hot knife through skin.  He doesn’t know how fast they’re moving – he never does – but his heart always starts to catch the rhythm mid-flight.  The jet is blanketed by the grey skies and technology and Liam doesn’t look down.

He never does.

It feels like the gravity is too heavy but he’s still floating.  Hot and cold under his skin.  That feeling he always gets before a mission – a bright flare screaming over a dark, dark sky.

He eyes Louis adjusting his wristbands, testing the spark of his bracelets – they call them a Widow’s Bite but Liam thinks they’re a little deadlier than that.

Louis looks up with a grin, something rusty and worn but it still makes his eyes bunch up.

The wind is strong and howling in their ears but Liam budges up next to Louis, their knees pressing together as the jet dips.  He drags a hand through his hair when Louis quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Tell me about,” Liam swallows thickly, dropping his gaze.  His palms are sweating.  “About Malik.  And Dubai?”

Louis leans back with a calm face.  His hair is slicked back by product, his thin face shaven of the bits of stubble he usually wears.  He scratches at his chin, teeth gnawing down on his lip.

He clears his throat gruffly and Liam feels the twitch in his fingers just before Louis says, “He was partying.  A weekend away with mates.  His father rented out some posh hotel for them, the whole lot.  Champagne and fucking _manic_ seventeen year olds, man.”

Liam blinks when the oxygen shifts in the cabin.  He blames the lightheaded sensation on that.

“He was careless, Malik was,” Louis explains, reaching down to fix his boots.  The cold metal of his gun presses into Liam’s hip.  “His father was on the verge of something pretty massive, they say.  Everyone wanted a piece.  So they went after Zayn.  Ambushed the hotel.  Littered the floors with bodies.”

Liam swallows, or he _tries_ to but there’s something like a lump of cotton stretching the muscles there.  His teeth bruise his lip in the wake.

“Malik tried to hide out.  They raided the place, bombed it with his own shit,” Louis adds, soft and slow.  “Kid almost made it out but he got clipped.  Shrapnel to the chest.  Kid almost bled out crawling to the basement.”

The air whirls louder, louder, dragging white noise in his ears.

Louis gives a halfhearted shrug.  His fingers run over Liam’s knee, give it a small squeeze.  “Bloody maniacs kept him for ransom for a few days,” he hisses, fingers pinching too harshly.  “Some medic friend of his father saved his life.  Kept the shrapnel from killing ‘im but he was fucked afterwards.  Permanent damage, man.”

“S’that why he – “

Louis nods gently.  “Murdered his father while he was almost dying on a cheap hospital bed,” he continues.  “He’s got some magnetic thingy keeping the shrapnel from ripping his heart apart.”

Liam lowers his head, shoulders pulling up around his ears.  It tastes like _guilt_ right on his tongue but –

He remember the boy from that office and his smug smile and his hands all over that assistant’s hips and it’s so much easier to swallow.

Louis leans in, his voice softer when he adds, “He’s living off some artificial generator in his chest but most people say _Zayn_ died out there in Dubai.  Bloody shame, really.”

Liam wipes the sweat off on his thighs, still staring down at his boots.  The lights of the wings catch on the surface of his shield and it’s enough to burn the image of Zayn’s frown from his retinas.  His fingers, absently, work the knots from the nape of his neck before he looks up.

“Yeah, well,” he says but he doesn’t bother finishing.

Zayn is just a function of the job.  Another mission.

Liam doesn’t fail when it comes to orders.

“You alright old man?” Calum teases from a corner of the jet, nudging his elbow into Michael’s ribs.  “You look like y’need your oxygen mask or summat.”

They’re upstarts.  Two new kids in the division.  Barely able to nick off a killshot without flinching and not skilled enough to lead a mission yet.

Still, Liam knows they’re useful.  They’re more than just their mouths and cheap flirting with female agents in the lobby.

“As long as he doesn’t have to bail your arses out like he did back in Prague, I think you two should worry about not getting your dicks shot off this go, yeah?”

Liam recognizes the drag of his voice.  It’s always smoky like he’s huffed a pack or scratchy like he’s foregone a gag reflex while giving a blowjob – a cruel image Louis created in his head, the right bastard – but Liam likes it.

It’s strangely comforting.

He looks over to the bay doors, Harry crouched on one of the seats while sharpening an arrow.  His cheeks light up, even in the dark, with a soft pink and his dimples are in plain sight.  His eyes are like evergreen with bare arms stained in ink.

All of those soft curls that usually fall into his eyes when they’re not in the field are tugged back into a careless bun.  Harry looks so young, especially in the sun, but here he looks boyish.  Soft cheeks and creamy skin contrasting with all of the black in his uniform.

“Thanks Styles,” he says, quietly.

Harry smirks, bears his white teeth and nods.

Unlike Louis, Harry’s not a boy of words.  He’s actions and a clean laugh and looks that all of the girls, the lads too, can’t avoid.

“Hey,” Louis grins, elbowing him.  Their shoulders knock through the turbulence.  “What about Jade?  From I.T.?”

Liam snorts, smiles immediately.  “I’m busy.”

Louis frowns, sighing loudly.  “What about Friday?” he offers while Liam stands.  “Dinner and a film, okay?  You like those sappy romantic comedies, right?”

“That’s _you_ , Lou,” Harry chuckles from the side.

Louis flips him off without hesitation.  So crude but he can’t hide his tender smile, not even in the dark of the jet.

Liam stretches, listens for the bones cracking and the muscles readjusting under his suit.

“I’m busy,” Liam laughs, motioning towards Calum.  The response is immediate – the hanger doors opening as Liam grabs his shield and braces against the whipping winds.

Louis groans.  “What about Sunday?”

“I’m _busy_ ,” Liam says, leaning on the ledge, the water below looking cold and uninviting.  He shoots Louis a quick grin over his shoulder, winking.  “Every night.”

He doesn’t wait for Louis’ response before he jumps.  He’s certain it’s as icy as the water below.

 

++

 

Liam is struggling for air.

It’s something he doesn’t take for granted anymore – _breathing_.  Not after being trapped in ice for seventy years.  Not after feeling like his lungs contract and release in the wrong order after losing Andy.  Not when, after every morning run, he’s lightheaded and _distant_ because the oxygen in London doesn’t taste like it did when he was twenty years old –

He’s _still_ twenty years old.  Physically.  He doesn’t live in technical terms anymore.

There’s a strong forearm pressing down on his throat.  He can feel the cold metal of a gun at his temple and another struggling arm strapped across his chest trying to pin him.  Heavy breathing in his ears, spit and warm breath shallow on his cheek.

His vision is a little blurred but he can still pinpoint the other soldiers approaching – two to his left, guns raised, one to his right with an ugly sneer, one center and approaching with a knife glinting in this musky grey room.

The voice in his ear is speaking in Bulgarian but he can’t make out a word of it.

Just the faint drop of his pulse and the rattle of his heart and he can’t quite reach his shield for a counterattack.

He can’t breathe.  All he thinks is – _fight, fight, fight._

It’s all adrenaline – the spike in his blood, that riot rhythm his heart creates.  He shrugs out of the grip across his throat, the arm trying to pin him in place.  His elbow cracks over a jaw, spare fingers swiping up his shield.

_Instinct_.

That sudden headrush before he’s hurling his shield at a skull, crouching to avoid a few poorly aimed bullets.  He grips his fingers around a wrist before the knife can slice through his uniform, cracking three different bones of the soldier approaching from the center – he can hear every ligament in his ear as it snaps – while catching the blade with his other hand.

He heaves the knife without looking, catching the soldier on the left with the reckless laugh in the shoulder.  Liam leaps high, trapping another soldier’s neck with his ankles and he falls into the momentum to take him off his feet.  His heel presses down on a throat while he reaches up to catch the shield, deflecting another attack from the ground.

Bones cracking against the vibranium.  He repels another assault, kicking a soldier into the brick wall behind him.  He ignores the way he can hear a spine snap when the dust falls away to knock another soldier to the floor with his shield.

He _breathes_.

Liam flutters his eyes closed, shaking off the brief sting in his muscles.  He brushes the dirt from his uniform and holsters his shield on his back.  He sniffs while cracking the bones in his knuckles, teeth biting down on his bottom lip.

Fight, fight, fight.

Liam doesn’t bother to look down as he walks.  There’s a crumb trail of fallen soldiers behind his heels.  He’s lost count of how many but the building is secure.  It’s all that matters to him.

Another voce in his ear, static and white noise from his in-ear.

“Hostages are secure, Cap,” Calum comes in, fuzzy.  “Haven’t seen Widow.  Heading back to the checkpoint.”

His eyelashes flutter on his cheeks.  There’s a knot in his stomach to match the one in his neck from the struggle.  He flicks his tongue over his lips, tastes metallic blood from a cut that’ll heal soon – another advantage from the serum.

Or a _curse_.  Sometimes, he can’t decide which it is.

“Tomlinson?” he calls, softly, into the com-device on his wrist.  “Tomlinson?  Lou?”

Dead air.  Just the static and white noise again.

Louis can hold his own but –

Liam isn’t a boy built on _chances_.  He doesn’t believe in dumb luck.  There’s no guarantees in combat.

He takes off in a full sprint, like his morning runs, shouldering through a few heavy metal doors.  He doesn’t flinch through the contact – the bruises the doors leave behind on his shoulder.  Sweat slicks his forehead and there’s dirt on his face, blood on his chin.

_Fight_.

Liam kicks into the surveillance room and heaves in a loud breath when he finds Louis.

He’s leaning over a series of computers, smooth spine arched sharply, skintight black stretching over all of his muscles.  Louis has an eyebrow flicked up at him, a crooked smile like he’s a little shocked and halfway pleased with Liam’s disheveled appearance.

A cocky bastard with blue eyes at half-mast and pink lips widening when Liam narrows his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Liam huffs, glancing around the room.  It’s empty, secure.  “Why aren’t you answering your radio?”

Louis shrugs carelessly, dragging his eyes back to the screens.  “Thought we were on radio silence.”

Liam scowls.  He’s trying to regulate his breathing but – “You damn – “

“Watch it, Captain,” Louis smirks, smooth fingers pecking at the keyboards, “It’d be quite awful for you to ruin your wholesome image with a foul mouth.  What would your barbershop quartet think?”

It’s a tease, Liam knows.  Louis magical at that – stirring all of the wrong emotions.  He thrives off the irritation, the frustration.  It’s a talent Liam thinks not many people can master like he has.

The room stinks of dust and the lighting is poor – some half-wash of yellowy beam from an uncovered light bulb but all of the computers look new.  The equipment shiny.  Like the room is just a cover-up for something bigger.  Camouflage.  Liam can’t work it out in his mind but he doesn’t have to.

Louis’ clever smile says it all – something devious.

“We all have our mission, Cap,” Louis grins, the fuzzy blue glow from the screens, like an evening star, glinting off his face.

“Yes,” Liam hisses, striding in closer.  “ _Ours_ is to save lives.”

“Yours,” Louis corrects with a puff of breath, smirking.

“What does that mean?” Liam growls, still keeping his voice low.

He’s smart enough to know it was too easy to break into this building.  There must be more soldiers, nearby.  A few floors down, maybe.  Somewhere close.

Louis wriggles his eyebrows, thumbing over the keyboard.  “I’m saving lives.  Just not in the front-page-newsworthy sort of way.  This world is a lot darker than when you were fighting Nazis, babe.”

Liam squints at him.  His eyes watch the long, curvy line of Louis’ spine as he bends over, humming to himself and watching the computer download information onto his flash drive.  Liam bites down to swallow the words he wants to toss back at Louis.

Louis straightens, grinning.  He yanks the flash from the computer before stepping back, his gun already lifted.  He shoots out the screens, pierces the hard drive with a bullet.

“Trust me, Captain,” Louis grins, patting Liam’s chest as he moves around him.  “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

He’s still humming as he steps over the trashed computer.  The shadows and black material outline Louis’ body as he walks out the door, chin cocked up like he’s done nothing wrong.

Liam doesn’t know the meaning of _trust_ anymore.  Maybe he never did, really.

Harry’s in his ear this time.  “Ready to head home, Captain?”

Liam eyes the sparks from the destroyed computer.  He watches it catch fire, the fuzzy transmission across the cracked screens.  He sniffs, licks away drying blood.  The wound is already healed.

“Captain?”

“On the way, Styles,” he bites off and he doesn’t mean to sound harsh.

It’s just that – Liam doesn’t know where home is anymore.

 

++

 

Liam knows the labs on the center floors of SHIELD a little too intimately.

In and out of stone white rooms, hospital beds, that clean scent like peroxide and ammonia.  Needles and tubes of his blood on a shelf.  Constant fingers poking at his muscles, testing his breathing, checking his pulse.  That flashlight in your eye, testing your vision but really blinding you.

It’s always cold and sterile and probably Liam’s least favorite place in the whole world.

Except, it’s where Liam can always find Niall.

Perched on the end of a metal table, surrounded by thick textbooks and three different laptops, loud music thumping through the room even though most of the laboratory floor is quiet like a library.  He’s got his legs crossed under him, curled over with a book in his lap while he blindly types on one of the laptops, chewing on his bottom lip.

Liam watches him from the doorway, smiling.

He’s soft, pale skin with rosy cheeks.  He’s got cheap box dye in his hair, a shock shade of blonde and dark, dark roots.  He prefers ripped jeans and messy shirts rather than a lab coat or a SHIELD uniform.  There’s a half-eaten box of pizza on the table, sitting lazily on a stack of files – probably all about Liam – and Niall keeps swiping greasy fingers over his nose while reading.

“Find anything new about me, mate?” Liam wonders, smirk widening when Niall’s head snaps up.

There’s an instant heavy blush on Niall’s cheeks when he looks at Liam.  “M’not – I mean, like, I wasn’t.  Y’know,” he stammers, ducking his head.  “I’m studying Roman empires and shit.”

He’s lying.  Liam doesn’t call him on it but he knows.

Higgins warned Liam about Niall after all of the shock from being trapped in ice faded off.  They call it _hero worship_ – Liam’s not fond of it because, honestly, he’s not a hero.

Just a soldier.

But Louis tells Liam that Niall has a vintage trading card collection devoted to Captain Britain and there’s old posters of him on the wall of Niall’s lab and he always has this fond look in his eyes when he watches Liam.

It’s odd but Liam likes Niall’s laugh.  He likes his easiness.  He likes the way Niall treats him like a _human_ – for the most part – rather than a weapon.  Or a historical exhibit to stare at.

Niall is a warm blanket when your feet are cold and you can’t find your favorite thick socks.

“It’s okay,” Liam grins, knocking Niall’s shoulder with a loose fist, “I think it’s pretty amazing.  The stuff you come up with – like, in here.”

Niall flushes again but his smile thickens.  He tips his head up, chest puffing out with pride.

“It’s sick.”

Liam cocks an eyebrow up at him.

Niall snorts.  “We say things like that, now.  _Sick_.  Wicked.  When something is cool or, like, _brilliant_.  Call it sick.”

Liam groans, laughing into his knuckles when Niall goes red again.  He reaches out to smear the grease off of Niall’s cheek, his skin still shiny afterwards.

“Okay,” he hums, watching Niall’s eyelashes fan over his cheek.  “I think it’s – like, I guess, sick?”

Niall nods happily and Liam doesn’t complain about how mental it sounds to use words like that to reference something _good_ because that shine in Niall’s eyes is comfort.

Thick, warm socks on cold feet.

Liam drags his fingers over the spines of the messy collection of books next to Niall’s knee.  He cocks his head sideways, wrinkling his brow.

“Why’ve you got books on Norse mythology?”

Niall grins, shoulders coming up tight around his neck.  His cheeks go pink, the blush running down under the collar of his softly worn-out shirt.

“Top secret stuff, Captain,” he says with a fondness.

Liam raises his eyebrows.  His throat closes around a sigh.  “Of course,” he replies.  Everything around here is.

He sidles up closer to Niall, a knee in his hip, leaning against the table while Niall switches from some heavy metal tune to something a bit more relaxed.

“Eagles?” Liam inquires, his fingers catching on the back of his neck.

Niall beams up at him.  “You remembered?”

Liam snorts, nudging him with an elbow.  “Of course.”

He watches the spotty blush all over Niall’s cheeks, down his neck.  It’s endearing, like Niall’s laugh when something is really funny or his toothy grin when someone recognizes him in the hallways.

“Higgins says you’re working on the Malik stuff?” Liam asks conversationally.

Niall nods, sucking in his bottom lip.  “We’re trying to track down the weapons.  Some awfully nasty stuff, I swear, man.  Been testing with gamma radiation ta create summat ta counter an attack also.”

Liam loves the way Niall’s accent deepens when he starts talking science.  The other agents call him _nerdy_ but Liam just finds him fascinating.  He’s certain it goes both ways with Niall.

“What about Malik?” Liam wonders, his tone even.

“What ‘bout ‘im?” Niall shoots back, cocking his head curiously.

Liam drops his chin a little.  He picks at his fingers, shrugging.  It’s not like he’s _interested_.  Or concerned.  Or – Malik is just the mission.  Liam doesn’t fail when it comes to a mission, that’s all.

“You know him, right?” Liam bites down on his words with his teeth, his tongue loose but his jaw tight.

Niall blinks at him.  The bright fluorescent lights give a glare off his hair and his heavy eyelashes cast uneven shadows over his cheeks before he nods.

“Tell me about him,” Liam says, casual, or at least it’s how he tries to sound.  Like he doesn’t care.  Because he _doesn’t_.  “He seems a bit – “

“Narcissistic?” Niall suggests.

“No, um, just a little – “

“Egotistical?” Niall offers.

Liam sighs, looking down at his hands again.  “Maybe but he’s – “

“A prick?” Niall sings.  “Snobbish?  A wanker?  A tosser or summat?”

“Horan,” Liam groans, nudging him hard with an elbow.  It almost knocks Niall off the table but he recovers quickly with a snort, a loud laugh that pricks beautifully in Liam’s ears.

“Okay, okay,” Niall stutters while still laughing.  “Couldn’t quite help it, yeah?  I’ve been ‘round ‘im, mate.  I get it.”

Liam presses his lips together for a soft smile that doesn’t last long.  He steals one of Niall’s books, flipping through it like there’s more interesting things than –

Well, _Zayn_.

“Went to Cambridge together, actually,” Niall admits, leaning back to swipe another slice of pizza.  Grease stains his pink lips shiny like pink candy.  “He was, well, _different_ , I s’ppose.  A bit of an arse but not on purpose.  He just, like, wanted to impress his father, ‘s all.”

Liam nods, still not looking up.  He grins at all of the little doodles Niall’s drawn into the pages, big words highlighted and pages dog-eared for later reference.

It’s a simple distraction because Liam actually understands.  He knows that feeling – trying to make someone else proud.

It’s a ghost still chasing him.

“Was a bit arrogant, that one,” Niall shrugs, mumbling around folded up pizza.  “Didn’t really chat with him much.  I wouldn’t call ‘im a bro or nothin’.”

Liam feels the wrinkle between his eyebrows at Niall’s words.  Sometimes, he doesn’t quite understand how easily Niall slides from a collection of science vocabulary to one of those blokes Liam remembers from fraternities near his hometown.

“He’s really trying to do great t’ings for the world, though,” Niall adds, wrinkling his nose when he smiles.  “Proper laddy trying to do right.”

Liam doubts that.  Zayn is selfish.  He’s self-motivated for all of the wrong reasons.

“I think ye should give him another chat,” Niall suggests, smearing grease on Liam’s uniform when he reaches out to pinch Liam’s wrist.  Liam looks down at his calloused fingers, making a face.

Niall laughs, the noise echoing off the glass and along the walls.

“I’d rather not,” Liam moans, slumping a little.  “Lads like him are only interested in a few things – “

“Such as?” Niall asks with a raised brow.  He wriggles his eyebrows at Liam, looking cartoonish and mental.

Liam blushes quickly, thumping a stiff fist to Niall’s shoulder.  He grins when Niall yelps.

“Keep researching, Horan.”

Niall laughs again, punching Liam weakly.  Liam doesn’t bother pretending he doesn’t feel it.

Niall looks up at Liam, sleepy smile and exhaustion under his eyes from a lack of sleep and too many hours in the lab.  No one says anything but they all know Niall catches kips at his desk rather than having a proper lie-in at his own flat, spending too much time researching gamma rays and other things Liam knows nothing about.

Niall rubs at his eyes, still smirking.  “Poor, poor Captain Britain.  Malik’s got you all bothered.”

“M’not,” Liam frowns.

“Yeah, well,” Niall sighs and Liam’s thankful when he leaves it at that.

He’s unaffected by Zayn.  In fact, he hasn’t thought about Zayn since –

Fifteen seconds before he walked into the lab.  Three hours ago while in the shower, washing off the dirt and crusty blood from their mission.  Ten hours ago when –

Liam bites down on his bottom lip, harshly.  Maybe the taste of blood will leak all of the _Zayn Malik_ from his system.

“Got the info you needed, Hulk.”

Harry eases into the lab, curls still pulled tightly back into a messy bun.  His grin is so easygoing, the kind of charm someone like him shouldn’t possess so lazily.

He tosses a few files onto the desk, budging up to Niall’s other side.  He steals a slice of pizza, winking at Niall until he blushes into his textbook.  Harry chuckles, his uniform unzipped halfway to show off the ink scrawled over his chest and all of that black still makes his soft skin standout, even under the harsh lighting.

“Hulk?” Liam wonders, softly.

Niall ducks his head again, groaning.  His skin is a sharp red now.  Harry giggles to the right of him, slinging an arm scattered in tattoos around Niall’s hunched shoulders.

They fit nicely, like old mates, barely concealing their grins and bunched eyes.

“You’ve not seen Horan outside of the building?” Harry laughs, dimples showing.  His long fingers are caught in the hairs on the back of Niall’s head, shifting and twirling.  “He’s a full rager, this one.  Out of control.”

“Harry,” Niall whimpers but he’s grinning like an idiot.  Embarrassed but a little bit proud too.

Harry bumps his chin against Niall’s temple.  “Raging, I’m telling you Captain.  Keep him away from the Jameson.”

“M’Irish, mate,” Niall shrugs, even with Harry’s lazy, heavy arm on his shoulders, “We like whiskey.”

“Stereotype,” Harry teases.

Niall doesn’t disagree.  He merely pushes back into Harry’s touch until Harry’s fingers start to move on his head again.

“Drug him out the other day for his birthday,” Harry adds, leaning forward to look at Liam.  “He was incredible.”

He continues to muss Niall’s hair while Niall snuffles over his forearm.  It’s odd – the contrast.  The quiet, goofiness of Niall to the sleek, effortless agent Liam knows Harry is.

Liam nods at them, watches the way they fold around each other and softly tease each other about moments Liam wasn’t there for.  Laughing into each other’s neck, Harry wrecking Niall’s hair while Niall bites at his forearm and Liam sort of remembers that –

  1.   Having a proper mate and something like a brother.



It’s a toxic taste he doesn’t want to think about.

Liam gets up to leave, his nose twitching and his lip between his teeth.

“Captain, ye should consider talkin’ to ‘im,” Niall suggests to his back.  “We’re all a bit human under all the armor.”

Liam doesn’t stop to respond but he lowers his head some.  He sighs quietly, dragging his feet as he walks towards the lifts.

He won’t admit Niall’s right because he’s not.

Not about Zayn, at least.

 

++

 

Liam hates Niall.

He doesn’t actually but he hates the way Niall’s words stick in his head a whole day later, on a constant loop like his favorite old vinyl records.

He hates how he tugs on an old t-shirt, a soft flannel he loves with all the buttons undone, an wrinkled pair of jeans.  He slides on a snapback, the brim pulled low to hide his eyes and half his face in the shadows, before slipping into the pulsing crowd of this city.  He wedges himself between strangers, shoulders lowered, head down to remain unnoticeable as he walks.

As he wanders until, absently, he finds himself outside of that tall glass building with the name _‘Malik’_ lit up near the top of the tower.

Rough fingers pressed to the nape of his neck, teeth chewing a bottom lip sore, all of the tension in his muscles diffused the moment he steps on the lift overlooked.

“Captain Britain,” Ms. Watson smiles when he steps off the lift, leaning over her desk.

He gives her a shy wave, dragging his feet and waiting near the doors rather than moving closer.

“I was – “

She’s already nodding, a cheeky grin that she doesn’t retract when Liam’s cheeks go hot with blush.

“I figured as much,” she says, stepping around her desk with an armful of files, fluttering eyelashes like she’s teasing him.  “Not many _fit_ men like yourself come to visit me.”

Liam’s brow lifts and his heart speeds up half a beat but he gives her a wrinkled, nervous smile when she gently pats his shoulder while passing.

“Just Mr. Malik,” she sighs, still smiling.  “Always Mr. Malik.”

He steadies his expression, blinking at her.  She’s still mocking with her smile but it’s playful, lighthearted.  It’s enough to calm all of the exploding neurons in his system while he watches her.

“Um,” he swallows, digging the toe of his boot into the carpet, “is he – “

She smiles something softer over her shoulder.  It’s one of those looks that catches him off-guard, like she’s thinking something he’s definitely not.

Zayn is a mission.  He’s an order.

“Mr. Malik is in his favorite thinking spot,” she finally says, hiding half of her grin behind her shoulder, “Top floor.  Just follow the smoke.”

He nods and refuses to look down at his shaking hands until he’s in the lift, alone, trying to remember his purpose here.

 

++

 

The sky over London is an acidic blue, scraps of charcoal grey underneath the clouds.  It’s the kind of overhang he remembers from rainy mornings, curled in a lumpy bed, dreaming about being something more than an underweight teenager trying to fit in.

Trying to impress someone – _anyone_ , really.

The wind exhales a heavy, cold breath across the naked nape of his neck and goosebumps chase the feeling down his arms.  He wrinkles his nose at the scent of nicotine, overwhelming and unpleasant, as he looks over the tiny city below this glass castle.

Zayn is standing near the edge, leaning over the steel railing with a cigarette pinched between a thumb and index finger, a cold glass of something brown caught in his other hand.  His shirt pulls tightly around his wide shoulders, that neat line between chest and torso a little distracting.  The sleeves are shoved up again, forearms drenched in ink, the half-sun behind the clouds glinting off the moon-sized face of his watch.

He sniffs, biting his lip around a mouth of smoke.  Long eyelashes beat over his cheeks, a loose tie flapping with the wind.

Zayn takes a sharp glance over his shoulder when Liam gets closer.  He sighs loudly, turning his face away.  His lips twitch anxiously before he takes a drink, another swallow of smoke.

“Remind me to fire Caroline, yeah?” he grunts.

Liam glances up at the turquoise bits of the sky rather than Zayn.  “You won’t,” he challenges.

Zayn snorts, grinning down at his drink.  “You’re right,” he whispers, swirling the hard liquor, “but someone in security is getting tossed.”

Liam’s mouth itches for a smile but he won’t let it twist far enough over his lips.  Not for this boy.  Not for his arrogance.

“Not in uniform?” Zayn asks, tilting his head to look at Liam again.  He drags his eyes over Liam slowly with a crooked grin.

Liam feels uncomfortable and a little abashed, which is ridiculous because Zayn is –

“Just wanted to talk,” he shrugs instead.  “S’that alright?”

Zayn shrugs back.  He tips his head back for another quick sip of alcohol.  Jack Daniels.  The half-empty bottle is by Zayn’s feet, condensation slipping down the glass like sweat on skin.

“It’s a shame, innit?” Zayn wonders, turning to look at Liam, smirking.  His eyes move carefully over Liam once more.  “You look quite fit with the Britain uniform and all.  Quite – well, y’know.”

Zayn wriggles his eyebrows for emphasis and Liam tries not to squirm.

He squints at him, huffing.  “Malik – “

Zayn waves him off, exhaling a cloud of smoke from his nose.  He flicks the last of his cigarette over the railing, swaying a little from the liquor.

“Zayn, please,” he groans, wafts of smoke following his words.  “Everyone else calls me _Mr. Malik_ and it reminds me of my father.”

Liam scowls at him because how is he supposed to be sympathetic towards such a –

He’s not a fan of the words Tomlinson would use but he thinks, mildly, they would be appropriate to describe Zayn.

“Malik,” he mutters under a breath before moving in closer, propping himself up against the rail and glancing down at the washed out city below.  It’s a dirty snowflake from here but Liam still admires it with the same solemn glare.

Zayn sighs.  He scratches at his afternoon stubble, taking another drink.

“I’m terrified of heights,” he says low, a drag to his voice from the smoke.  His shoulders go a little tight when their forearms accidentally brush but he keeps his eyes low.

Liam arches an eyebrow at him.  He nips at the edge of his lip before Zayn continues.

“My baba used to bring me up here all of the time when I was a kid,” he says in that same soft, scratchy voice.  He looks reflective – not that Liam is _staring_.  “All the time.  While he worked on new projects.  Just to, like, _think_.  Watch the city.”

Liam follows the sharp line of Zayn’s jaw when he sucks in his bottom lip.  There’s an even pace to his breathing but Liam can see underneath all of the expensive clothes and the cloud of smoke –

The flutter of Zayn’s eyelashes give him away.  The vulnerable way he holds his head.

“He used to always tell me I’d be great, one day,” Zayn adds, lips moving into a sad smile.  He stains his lips shiny with the last of his drink, twirling the glass between his fingers.

Their shoulders brush again, accidentally, but Zayn doesn’t look as bothered as before.

Instead, with an even quieter voice, he sighs, “Sometimes I wonder did I fail him.”

It’s not the sound of his words colliding.  It’s the way Zayn lowers his eyes, long lashes pressing on his cheek, bottom lip swollen from his teeth.

Liam feels the same way too.  Sometimes.

“SHIELD is very interested in your safety,” Liam says after a beat.

He’s just a mission.  A task, an order, nothing more, Liam swears.

Zayn tilts his head in the other direction, the wind fanning through little gaps in his quiff.  “I don’t need extra security, Liam,” he mutters, shoulders dropping.  “I’ve plenty bodyguards.”

“I’m not a bodyguard,” Liam snaps back, wrinkling his brow.

Zayn snorts, flicking his eyes over Liam.  They trail along the bunched muscles straining against Liam’s shirt, the width of his shoulders, the tense pull of his jaw.

“From here,” Zayn says, sounding amused, “it looks like it, mate.”

Liam wrinkles his nose at Zayn and that rush of adrenaline feels different this time.  It feels taunting and hot.  Too hot.

“I’m a solider, plain and simple,” he growls lowly and, for the spite, he adds, “Malik.”

Zayn scoffs into the wind.  He turns and leans carelessly on the rail, his spine pressed to the metal.  Liam flinches, fingers jolting like he needs to catch him and Zayn grins.  Arrogant piece of –

“Looks like you’re protecting me, Liam.  Guarding me – my _body_ ,” Zayn says, a pink tongue licking his lips shiny, so wet.

Liam recoils back some.  His heart is in his ears, too loud and unsettled, and his breathing is this absent thump like a drum.

“I’m protecting the safety of this world,” he grunts.

He reaches forward and pinches calloused fingers tightly around Zayn’s wrist to drag him forward.  He almost grins at the way Zayn stumbles but his spare hand palms a hip to keep Zayn from falling into him.

“If that means keeping you alive, mate, then so be it.”

Zayn flinches, a soft scrunch to his nose, under the pressure Liam’s fingers create.  They sink further into skin and bone but Zayn doesn’t falter.

His pink lips quirk, just at the corners, for a long moment.

“I don’t wanna be bothered with SHIELD, Captain Britain,” he grins.  “Save somebody else.  I’ve got it under control.”

Liam loses his strength on the tongue flicking out to drag over Zayn’s lips and he tugs away from Liam’s fingers before either notices.  There’s a quiet huff in Zayn’s next breath.  He knocks his shoulder to Liam’s while passing, fingers clenched into fists by his side.  Liam doesn’t reach back when he walks off.

Halfway, the wind setting down on them like a hurricane, Zayn looks over his shoulder.  He’s biting down on his lip, this uncertain vulnerability in his eyes when he glances at Liam.  It’s brief.  It’s so quick before Zayn is stomping off and through the emergency exit.

He’s gone and Liam doesn’t know why he hopes he doesn’t return.

But he _hopes_ his fingers, the one that bruised Zayn’s wrist, stop prickling with a want he knows shouldn’t exist.

 

++

 

In his dreams, there’s something heavy sat between all of the old Polaroid black and white – the grey.

It’s a flood of memories he can recall just by touch rather than by sight.  Just sketched out flashes of a scene, crackling and peeling at the edges.  Thoughts that pierce the dead and the regret.

Grainy images of Dr. Erskine pricking his skin with a long needle.  Dark blood smeared against his palm when Erskine was shot, everything charcoal and snowy.  That smile on his lips, staring at Liam like – like all of his life’s work has unfolded into this dumb boy beneath the muscles, the height, the image.

Liam’s misfit band of heroes marching down the countryside.  The cherry red of Ollie’s hair in the sun, the roar of Maz and his laughter by a campfire, the poorly aimed practice shots by Tom in the trees, the way Andy stood above them all in a line up.

His boys.  His army.  His brothers.

Scratched up photographs in his head, like fresh scar tissue, when he thinks of how cold that train in Germany was.  His breath just a white smoke in front of him.  His lungs pulling and pulling until he was lightheaded.

The tips of his fingers still hot from being wrapped around Andy’s wrist, hours and hours after he had fallen from the train.

The smear of tears across his palm from stubbornly wiping them off his cheek.  Silver in his dreams now.  Glittery and heavy in his hand until, in his bed, his lungs keep pulling and pulling but they never fill.

He startles from his sleep with a soft yelp, a deep drag of breath.  The sweat on his forehead is cold in this flat – it’s not a home; nothing is.  He’s thrashes about, legs twisted in the sheets, arms swinging but never connecting.

But his fingers still burn, white hot and aching, and he can’t shake it.

He blinks until his eyes adjust to the dark, to this uncomfortable surrounding.  His throat won’t stop trembling and his heart – it’s outrageous.  It’s like a bass in his ears, like a marching band in his blood.

The sweat rolls down his muscles, his chest, his shoulders like tossed stones.  The shadows crowd him, the wet brush of a blue moon outside of his bedroom window making it all bearable but Liam –

He squeezes his eyes shut and wishes that this part was the dream.

His fingers twist into the sheets while he swallows.  He drags the back of his wrist across his mouth, even though it’s dry and his tongue won’t function, before that familiar buzz of a muted telly pulls on his attention.

Liam thinks about putting on a kettle, watching old cartoons until he can pretend to sleep again but –

There he is.  On the screen.  _Zayn_.

It’s some silly interview on BBC, just him in a half-suit, legs crossed at the knee, smiling like he’s interested but Liam can tell he’s not.  He’s putting on a show.  Laughing but not really because Liam knows Zayn gets these little crinkles at the corner of his eyes when he genuinely laughs.  His nose scrunches up.

Reconnaissance info, he tells himself.  Things he needs to know for the mission.  Little cracks in his poker face just in case he’s in danger.

Because Liam Payne has _not_ been studying Zayn Malik from afar for almost a week now.

Not at all.

He settles back down into the warm sheets and watches, telly still on mute.  He stares at Zayn, the absent way his tongue flicks over his lips incessantly.  The casual way he always talks with his hands.  The angle he holds his jaw when he’s listening to someone.

Liam glares at Zayn until his eyes become heavy.

He palms, absently, at his half-hard cock beneath the sheets and quickly looks away when he starts to pick out the soft cognac color of Zayn’s eyes.

_Just a mission_.

He can’t sleep after that but he closes his eyes and pretends to.  He’s getting better at that.

 

++

 

“He really does have that suit and tie combo down, y’think?”

Liam cocks his head at Louis, lifting a curious eyebrow.

“Y’know, like the Justin Timberlake tune?” Louis offers, a frown-smile on his lips.

Liam shakes his head, ducking down a little more behind the ledge of the roof.

The sky over Islington is like a soft blue gem, the clouds high and pulled apart like pieces of lint on a nice jumper.  They’re doing recon on the roof of some shop Liam doesn’t know but it’s a small building, _discreet_ , that sits across from a long line of restaurants.  Liam is only focused on one though.

A tiny café with colorful umbrellas hiding the sun from the outside tables.  Biscuits and tea at every nicely dressed table.  The wait staff in simple black and white, the small inside shop stuffed with midday visitors.

The air is warm enough that Zayn has his sleeves rolled messily up to his elbows, his pressed jacket hanging off the back of his chair.  He’s slouched in his chair, tie hanging loose, swiping through his phone while a table full of suits argue around him.

Liam tries not to notice his clean shaven jaw, the way there’s less product in his dark hair and how it hangs a little limp but still tall.  He doesn’t count all of the ink on his forearm – eight, maybe nine from this angle – and he certainly hasn’t spent the better part of his high view watching how many cigarettes Zayn goes through rather than trying to pinpoint the information he’s tapping out on his phone.

“Are you listening to me?” Louis sighs, nudging a fist to Liam’s shoulder.

There’s an instant lift to his brow, head snapping towards Louis’ mischievous grin.  He hums a quick response, lowering his head when his cheeks catch fire with blush.

“Never heard of it.”

“Of course,” Louis huffs, squinting his eyes into some high-tech set of binoculars that Liam hates.

He doesn’t understand all of the advances and the _high-definition_ and –

He flares his nostrils with annoyance before peeking over the ledge again.  At Zayn.  _Christ_.

“So,” Louis starts in that corrupted tone he spares for no one, eyes blue and wide as he stares down at that small table of expensive suits bickering, “I was having a chat with Amelia, that nice nurse that lives down the hall from you – “

Liam thinks he should be disturbed by Louis’ words or his tone.  Maybe his lack of privacy but he’s not.  He’s eyeing Zayn with the sun thick on his spine, his palms sweaty for reasons other than the heat and –

He swallows a long breath that doesn’t shove all the words he doesn’t want to say down into his chest.  Instead, he drags his palms over his jeans and glares at the bruises on his knuckles.

Liam can’t help himself.

“Maybe,” he stammers, his nose scrunching.  He stops the trembles in his blood by staring at the ground.  “Maybe, like – _possibly_ I don’t want to date her.  Or any of them.  Like, it’s possible that I might – “

He hates that little knot right in the center of his throat.  He feels like a teenager, building courage to ask a girl out that will eventually say no.  Politely, with a smile, with a shimmer in her eyes.  But they always say no.

_Always_.

Liam bites the tip of his tongue.  He can see Louis shooting him an anxious look from a corner of his vision.  He must be completely daft because instead of _shutting up_ , he says, “What if, like, I’ve thought of – y’know, courting a bloke, instead?  Like.”

There’s a gap of silence that a short down draft fills.  It’s not loud enough because Liam can hear his erratic heart and Louis’ heavy breathing and all of the traffic below.

“Seriously?” Louis asks, then snorts.  He laughs into a loose fist to mute it.  “Did you really just say _courting_?  C’mon, Payno, seriously.”

There shouldn’t be a sense of relief fitting into his chest.  His muscles shouldn’t relax and he shouldn’t be smiling at the ground with pink cheeks.  He shouldn’t be telling Louis any of this but Liam doesn’t have mates.  Not since the second World War.  Not since the ice and the first real gasp of fresh air in this new world.  But Louis, unfortunately, is the closest thing to that – a _friend_.  Or something like that.

Something very _un_ like that, actually.

“Yeah, well,” Liam huffs before pressing the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth to stop all of the other words from falling out.

He squints down at the café for a distraction.  Zayn is a very unhealthy kind of diversion.

“It’s just, like, I dunno,” Liam stammers with fingers wrapped around the nape of his neck.  “Just a thought, I reckon.”

Louis’ eyebrows shoot up, arms crossing over his chest.

“A thought?”

“A _thought_ ,” Liam repeats, sternly.

Tomlinson is, by far, the worst kind of a friend.

“This is quite interesting, though.  Like breaking news or summat.  Sweet, charming Captain Britain, the hero of England, is into lads,” Louis teases, ducking a carelessly thrown punch from Liam.  “It’s brilliant, I tell you.”

“Shut up.”

“I never would’ve imagined, like – d’you want a bloke to play with your shield?  Maybe show ‘im how _super_ your soldier is?  Fucking hell.”

“Shut it,” Liam grumbles, low and rough.

“Hey, what are you doing on Saturday?” Louis continues, waving Liam off.  All of the tight black material of his uniform hugs at his skin as he twists with laughter.  “I can set you up with Aiden from the STRIKE division?”

Liam closes his eyes and wills the rage in his blood to calm but –

Honestly, he thinks tossing Louis off the roof of this small building might be a more reasonable option.

“How are things with _Styles_?” he asks, instead, grinning when Louis goes silent.

Louis narrows his eyes, sneering before looking over the ledge again.  He doesn’t respond and Liam feels like he’s slotted himself a victory.  A small one, but still.

“Everyone has a history, Payno,” Louis finally says, under his breath, watching a few of the men in suits dispatch from the table while Zayn continues to ignore all of them.  “Some darker than others.”

There’s a hard smile playing on Louis’ lips, tight and almost forced.

“But you don’t discuss yours,” Liam points out, the breath of wind sighing heavy on the back of their shoulders.

Louis flicks up an eyebrow with a shrug, a small smile following.  “Too much red in my ledger, Cap.”

Liam turns away from that careful look in Louis’ eyes.  They both know he’s not going to say much more than that.  It’s the only truth between them.

He watches Zayn light up another cigarette, cupping a hand over the flame to protect the fire from the breeze.  He drags a careless hand through his hair, tipping his head back to puff giant clouds of smoke from his lips.  Another sip of champagne from a glass the waiter drops off.  Another conversation started around him that he gives little attention to.

He’s just some bored bloke with a billion pounds in his bank account and the world at his feet.  Yet, Liam can’t figure out why he wants to peel the layers and money away to see what else Zayn is –

Louis clears his throat, coughing into his fist, and Liam concentrates on the change in atmosphere when a few security personnel tumbles into the scene before Ben Winston strolls up.

He’s unbuttoning his finely tailored blazer with one hand, greeting half of the table with handshakes and cheap smiles.  He’s a carousel of expressions, all of them artificial, while slapping backs and laughing loudly before he tugs Zayn up into a loose hug.

Liam feels his mouth twitch when Ben smacks a messy kiss to Zayn’s cheek, patting the other cheek with a strong palm, grinning like a maniac.

He sighs over his knuckles, digging his elbows into the concrete ledge while Louis whistles lowly.

“I don’t like him.”

Louis snorts, squinting into his lenses.  “Didn’t know we were having popularity contests.”

“We’re not,” Liam chews out, lips wrinkling into a frown.  “I just don’t – _I don’t like him_.”

Louis nods slowly, adjusting the view.  “He’s sort of been Zayn’s guardian since his parents died,” he explains, lowering his brow.  “Zayn trusts him.”

Liam is starting to think he never really knew the definition of that word.

Still, he cups a hand over his eyes to keep the sun out while watching Ben shrug an arm around Zayn’s shoulders, pulling him in tight like a father.  He’s talking over Zayn, putting on a show for the table with large hand gestures and put upon laughter.

He’s a bloody brilliant actor, or simply daft, because all of the other men clap and snort and toast him like he’s a mythological being.

Like he’s the king, ruling senseless subjects.

Except Zayn.  He stares down at his phone, lips quirking into a half-smile like someone’s pulling his strings.  A smartly dressed puppet.  It doesn’t hold but Zayn, temporarily, makes the effort.

Zayn smiles around the filter of his cigarette, crooked and all white teeth, when Ben pulls away to start up some discussion with a few of the suits.  He turns away from the crowd, shoulders dropped, the long line of his neck exposed as he huffs out smoke.

He watches the city slowly turning in the same old circles but like it’s brand new.  Like he never gets to view this side of the streets from his tower above London.

And Liam watches him.  Careful, a little too long, in his own little tower from afar, until he can sort out which side is the real Zayn.

The buzz and whirr of the intercom in his ear stirs him from his gaze.  He glances at Louis, toying and recharging the electric bracelets around his wrists and they both shrug when they hear a familiar voice in their ears.

“Having fun boys?” Eleanor asks.

“Massive amounts,” Louis sighs, fixing his lenses on the café again.  “Captain Britain here was just telling me – “

Liam swipes at Louis’ shoulder with a stiff fist, a warning.  Louis shuts up, momentarily, without a scowl or a glare.  Just a knowing smile that Liam hates even more.

“We’ve got a mission, gents,” Eleanor says, ignoring Louis’ childish grumbling in the background.  “Intel has finally cracked the scheduler on Ms. Watson’s database thanks to the bug you left on her computer, Tomlinson.”

Liam quickly shoots Louis a discouraged look that Louis shrugs at.  “Lou – “

“Oh shut it,” Louis huffs, making a huge gesture at them, on a roof, spying down on Zayn and his associates a dozen meters away.

Liam doesn’t argue the merit in that.

“Go on, El – “

“Agent Calder,” Eleanor corrects, instantly.

“Right, of course,” Louis grins, wry and deceptive, “Continue _El_.”

There’s an abrupt sigh on the other end of the com that Liam smiles unevenly at.  Eleanor commands respect and Louis is a deadly rebel.  It’s a wonder they haven’t tried to put a bullet in each other’s head yet.

“Winston is hosting a party for Malik.  Tonight.  Some pretentious affair for Malik closing a very important deal with another foreign party,” Eleanor explains, her voice crackled and static-y through their in-ears, “It’s in Victoria, at Pacha – “

“Oh, _sick_ ,” Louis grins but Liam keeps his eyes low, listening.

“You’ll meet up with Styles.  Director Higgins says watch over Malik,” she insists, her voice firm even though Liam knows she doesn’t have to be.  Not with him.  “It’s quite major – the event.  Loads of people.  ‘m sure quite a few interested parties will be watching.”

“Beautiful,” Louis smiles, tugging out his in-ear before Eleanor can finish.  He pushes back the loose bits of fringe the wind knocked about, quirking an eyebrow as he gives Liam a quick once over.  There’s an audible sigh before he says, “Payne, please try to look _presentable_ , yeah?”

 

++

 

Liam doesn’t like nightclubs.

It’s the loud music, rattling the walls like an echo in a tunnel.  The funnel of a tornado, right in his ears, too loud.

It’s the grinding bodies like cheap pornography.  Hands everywhere, lips slippery from alcohol and something carnal.  Just enough space between mouths and skin but with hips smashed together, creating this indecent rhythm that he thinks isn’t worth it.

It’s the unnecessarily expensive alcohol.  Shots lined up like a platoon across the bar.  Beer bottles on the floor, plastic cups sweating from the ice but glowing neon from the liquor under the flashing lights.  Cherries soaked in amber, lemon wedges dropped into a sea of vodka.

It’s that acidic taste every time he licks his lips, from the sweat and the mists of cologne and the flavorless beer.

He chews his pink bottom lip ruddy with anxious teeth, looking around.  He sniffs, shoulders tight, leaning over the bar.  The songs switch too quickly, everything bass-heavy and noisy, and drunken, giggly girls keep bumping into him on the way to the loo or to snog in a corner.

“Try to look like you’re enjoying y’self, Payno,” Louis offers up, knocking their hips.  He smiles around a beer, all of his hair pushed back and the sharp white lights leaving his face pale.

Harry laughs from the other side, hair pulled back into a tight knot.  He salutes Liam with some colorful drink drowning in ice, catching the skinny straw with his tongue to swallow some of it down.

“S’not his scene,” Harry shrugs, his dimples sharp and noticeable when he offers up a cheeky smile.

“Whatever,” Louis sighs.  His unzipped brown leather jacket pulls like skin around his shoulders, skinny jeans shredded at the knees, back arched high enough to draw attention to the round of his arse.

Unwanted attention.  They’re supposed to be undercover.  Undetected.

Louis stands out almost everywhere.

Liam sips slowly at a Red Bull, ducking his head to avoid anyone’s gaze.  Instead, he looks down at all of the watermarks on the bar – like living art with their shapes, squiggly jellyfish on a wood surface.

“Christ, Captain, have a beer,” Louis whines, finishing his before ordering up another.  “Just _relax_.”

“I don’t need a beer,” Liam grunts, still staring at the bar’s surface.  “It doesn’t do a thing for me ‘cause of – “

“Right, right.  Super soldier thingy,” Louis finishes, waving a dramatic hand around.  “Got it.”

Harry giggles again, slurping down the last of his drink.  He drops a few quid on the bar for another, a loose striped shirt baring all of the tattoos marking up his arms.  The collar is stretched and Liam gets a clear peek of two swallows near his collarbones, a hint of more beyond that.

“S’okay,” he laughs out, brushing invisible fringe from his face, “They like you, Cap.  Like – they think you’re hot.”

Liam hasn’t been paying attention, not completely, but he glances around.  There’s a group of dizzily drunk girls at the other end of the bar, openly running their eyes over him.  A few lads nearby, glaring at him with smirks.  A tall bloke a few yards away, his jaw slack and eyes wide like he wants to swallow him without gagging.  Like Liam is –

He lowers his head, his cheeks lit like the spinning lights.  A kaleidoscope of pinks he can’t avoid.  He chugs the rest of his Red Bull, gasping out a breath, dragging his hand over his mouth to wipe away the excess.

Harry’s right – this isn’t his scene.

Louis snorts while the reds, greens, the pulsing yellows spin around him, chasing shadows on the wall.  He spares a few pounds for a row of shots, tossing back three in one breath.  A silver trickle slides down his chin and he smirks at Liam, a careless shrug.

“Is that a brilliant idea?” Liam wonders, leaning further on the bar.  The sleeves of his tartan shirt are damp from over-poured liquor, the first few buttons unsnapped by Louis when they entered the club.

He’s refastened them _three times_ and, always after, Louis’ quick fingers undo them again.

“We’re supposed to be laying low.”

“It’s a quite _clever_ idea, mate,” Louis exhales, turning to lean his spine and elbows on the bar.  He watches the sea of endless bodies, mashed together, floating with the music.  “Besides, m’fine.  Quite alright.  I’m part Russian, remember?”

Harry cackles, licking into his next drink.  “And part twat also.”

“Hey!” Louis shouts, frowning with a creased brow.  He drags his eyes over Harry without a hint of disdain.  “You look quite smart tonight, Styles.”

Harry lifts his brow, equally calm.  “You noticed?”

“No,” Louis replies, flat with an eye-roll.  He snorts, pounding down another toxic shot without blinking.  “But that set of twins,” Louis points halfway across the dance floor to a set of pretty blondes, all shiny legs and short skirts and shoved up chests, “keeps eyeing you like they want to take turns making you scream, mate.”

Harry pokes a tongue into the side of his cheek, stepping onto the balls of his feet to have a look.  He wriggles his eyebrows but, after a moment, shoots Louis an unimpressed look.

Louis doesn’t say anything back and Liam wonders, silently, if this chess game will end in blood.  Or loud sex.

Probably the latter, though both Styles and Tomlinson will deny it.  Like everything else.

“Target in route.”

It’s Eleanor, white noise coming through his in-ear.

Liam chews on his thumbnail, fingers itching for his shield.  It’s tucked behind the bar, another perk paid for by Louis with a chunk of folded up pounds passed to the bartender when they got in.  Harry whispered something pretty to security for evade the usual pat-down outside and the bulge of Louis’ gun in his hip isn’t obvious to anyone but Liam.

The lights create a galaxy around the club, misshapen constellations on the walls, dizzy motions until Liam can track them all the way up to the gallery on the first floor.  The one overlooking the bars and dance floor.

He finds Ben first, laughing with a drink already in hand.  There’s a large entourage flanking him, worshiping him like blind followers.  Women in tight dresses, men in clever suits with buttons and ties undone.  Bottles of champagne lifted, glasses of liquor spilling like colorful waterfalls.  The bass fuzzing Liam’s vision until –

Zayn steps up to the balcony, smirking.  He’s lazily sipping at a drink, the lights turning it a honey color.  His shirt is a nice stain of burgundy, fancy material shimmering under dancing lights.  Evening stubble lines the edge of his jaw, cuffs shoved messily up his forearms like always.  There’s a few buttons undone in this haphazard way that shows his collarbones, the ink there, the soft blue glow of something hidden underneath.

He’s narrowing his eyes at the crowd, soaking in the music, a small shuffle-like dance when Ben sidles up to him, swinging an arm around Zayn’s shoulder with that pretentious laugh.

Liam doesn’t trust him, at all.

“Right.  Guess that’s my cue,” Louis drags out after swallowing another shot.  He presses a sloppy kiss to Liam’s cheek, laughing in his ear.  “Try to have a little fun, Payno.”

He sneaks off before Liam can reply, slipping into the messy stream of bodies on the floor.  Harry stands a little taller at the bar, squinting his eyes at every passing body and Liam feels his muscles jump.

It’s the adrenaline he can’t escape.  It’s built in now, a clock ticking loudly in his nervous system.

The music slips into something a little smoother, like a neat whiskey without the ice.  It still pulses through the speakers, deafens all of the conversations around him, but Liam doesn’t tense at the way it thrums.  He eyes the bartender for a cup of cold water and taps his fingers on the bar to _‘cause it’s too cold for you here and now so let me hold both of your hands in the holes of my sweater’_ until a shadow crowds into his space.

He looks up a little too late, Zayn already there with a wry smile, his glass in one hand while the other bumps Liam’s on the bar.

Zayn laughs when Liam retreats a little, pink lips kissing the mouth of his glass for a long sip.

“You look bored,” he grins.

Liam brushes his hand – the one Zayn touched, _Christ_ – over the nape of his neck.  He gives him a mild shrug, looking away.  “So do you,” he snips, wrinkling his brow.

Zayn shrugs casually, looking around.  His teeth catch his lip, the shine of a yellow spotlight cutting over his cheek and making him look gold.  Liam watches him swallow, muscles moving in time with _‘the goosebumps start to raise the minute my left hand meets your waist,’_ before Zayn turns back to him.

“I could afford to buy this place out, like, to myself, right?  Order up loads of drinks,” Zayn starts, sighing.  “But I like watching the people.  They’re fascinating.”

Liam flicks his eyes down to the bluish light glowing dimly from under Zayn’s shirt.  His lips slide into a crooked pout.

“A bit creepy – “

“Like _you_.  You’re quite fun to watch,” Zayn interrupts.  He tilts his head to admire Liam.  “Always so uptight, Captain.  So, like, _stiff_.”

Its dark, except for the swirling lights, the backlight around the music booth, but Liam can still see Zayn moving closer.  Hips nudging, elbows pressed together on the bar.

“Stiff except where it counts,” Zayn adds, hoarsely with a smirk.

His reflexes are quick, have been since that injection seventy years ago.  He centers a flat palm to Zayn’s chest, right over the cool metal beneath his shirt.  He doesn’t have to exert much energy, but still, he gives a kind shove.

“I’m here to keep an eye on you,” Liam warns.

Zayn scowls at him.  “M’not a kid,” he hisses, the soft skin between his eyebrows pinched.  “Told you I’m not interested in SHIELD or Captain Britain’s protection, alright?”

“ _Malik_ – “

“Have a drink with me?” Zayn offers, his voice quick but softly pleading.  He snaps his fingers at the bartender, arrogant with his smile, leaning over the bar.  His slim-fit grey trousers pull on his thighs, press out the shape of his arse and Liam –

He darts his eyes from the sight.  He’s a mission, remember?

Zayn orders up two drinks, strong cognac that fills Liam’s nose before they reach Zayn’s hands.  He shoves one at Liam, smiling with his teeth biting the edge of his mouth.

“I have a job to do, Malik,” Liam refuses, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well,” Zayn huffs, rolling his eyes.  He sips off one of the drinks, pink lips shiny when he grins.  “There’s only one job you can do for me, Captain.  And it starts with _blow_.”

He quickly chases his chuckle with one drink, covering a cough from the headrush with another laugh.  He ignores Liam’s sharp glare, pressing the empty glass into Liam’s palm before striding off into the throbbing mess of bodies on the dance floor.

Zayn doesn’t look back over his shoulder this time and Liam almost cracks the glass between his fingers to still the anger in his veins.

He barely feels Harry when he comes up, brushing their shoulders, raising his brow.

“Smooth, Captain.”

Liam frowns, watching the smooth line of Zayn’s back as he shifts through the crowd.  He stammers a little, face pinched with squinted eyes.

“He’s a – he’s a complete – “

“Dick,” Harry smirks.  He sips at a watered down drink, a cascade of rainbow lights flickering off his face.  “Yeah, bless.  He sort of is.”

Liam’s fingers curl into fists at his side but he doesn’t remove his eyes from Zayn.  He wishes he could.

“But he’s still the job, Cap,” Harry adds, dropping an empty cup to the long line of empty shot glasses spilled across the bar.  His elbow nudges Liam’s ribs, a gentle grin pressed over his mouth.  “Poor lad never got to live a life.  Had to grow up fast, yeah?  Sorta like you?”

Liam bites on his lip and doesn’t respond.  He thinks he’s _nothing_ like Zayn.

Harry stares off for a moment.  He’s looking up, to the first floor, towards Louis blending so smoothly with the crowd upstairs.  He stands out, unconsciously, with those bright blue eyes and smoothed hair and leather jacket stitched over his arms and chest like a second skin.

White teeth gnaw along a plump bottom lip, Harry’s only giveaway, before he reaches for another drink.  He narrows his eyes at the way Louis flirts his way through the madness, fluttering eyes and a pink tongue licking the sour taste of vodka from his lips.

_Lethal_ , Liam reminds himself because it’s what Louis is.  Wild eyes and sharp cheeks.  Gun tucked into his hip.

“What happened between you two?” Liam asks, standing a little straighter when Harry half-turns.  “In Moscow?”

Harry smiles.  It’s soft with slightly flushed cheeks – too much alcohol and not the mention of Louis, of course – and pronounced dimples.  He takes another slow sip of his drink, eyebrows shifting before he replies, “Nothing.  It’s all, well - _do svidaniya_ , yeah?”

Liam crinkles his eyebrows but Harry gives him a simple shrug, downing the last of his new drink in seconds before scooting around the bar, losing himself in the crowd.

It’s just another secret, a growing mound turning into a mountain, seconds from an avalanche.

His teeth clip a corner of his bottom lip when Liam twists to trace his eyes over the dance floor again.  Sweaty bodies pressed together, hands in the air, lips purposely staining a stranger’s skin pink.  It’s a supernova of champagne spilling and the thunder of a heavy beat.

It only takes seconds for Liam to find Zayn.

He’s shoved between two bodies, the music too loud for Liam to think properly.  Just watch.  From a distance, fingers squeezing painfully bruising little marks into his palms, knuckles gone white from the exertion.

There’s a beautiful girl with glow in the dark blue eyes, white-blonde hair, soft and pale skin stretched across the front of Zayn.  Her arms are draped loosely over his shoulders, one of his hand holding her waist so her hips are never too far from his.  She’s a mess of giggles, half-lidded eyes, sharp canines holding down her red bottom lip.

She looks harmless but her eyes keep flickering over his face like _‘let’s get outta here’_ is waiting on her tongue.

Behind Zayn, it’s a little needier.  Lustful.  His shoulders are broad.  He’s got large, strong hands mapping out Zayn’s narrow hips, dragging Zayn back on the obvious erection in his slim-fit trousers.  He’s got buzzed hair, dark eyes like mahogany, skin like raw honey.  His shirt is halfway undone and Liam wonders if Zayn did that.

If Zayn carelessly popped those buttons, cupped this bloke’s cock until it was a firm outline for everyone to see.  If maybe Zayn drug him to the dance floor, dripped alcohol on his tongue, wriggled his eyebrows like _‘maybe we could’_ until this boy was frantic for Zayn.

His blood turns hot, electricity in his veins, his breathing accelerated.

Liam wants to look away but he doesn’t.  He _can’t_.  It’s mental, the entire scene, the way the music taunts him with its constant _‘It’s not your fault that they hover, I mean no disrespect’_ in his ears.

There’s a tray of tequila shots passed around and Liam’s eyes narrow at that boy’s pink tongue extended to lick a trail of salt off Zayn’s neck.  He can see the veins sticking out under Zayn’s skin, the backwards tip of his head with laughter.  The boy chases the salt with the shot and the girl’s hands are _everywhere_ – the belt loops of Zayn’s trousers, up his ribs, across the nape of his neck where the hair is a little thicker.

Zayn ducks in, brushes his dry lips on her throat, pushing back on the boy’s crotch.  A flash of white teeth, a slick tongue collecting salt from her collarbone.

Just a throb of _‘you’re too sexy, beautiful and everybody wants a taste’_ until Liam thinks his fingers break the skin of his sweaty palms.

It’s between the grinding, the hands, the boy whispering in Zayn’s ear that Liam’s breath catches hot and sharp in his chest.  When Zayn’s eyes meet his halfway across the room.

Zayn smirks with dark eyes, a red mouth, sweat sliding off his skin like collected raindrops down the storm drain.

Liam swallows, his breathing uneven, Eleanor saying something in his ear that he can’t make out.  Not over the rumble of _‘that’s why I still get jealous’_ and the uncommon flutter of his heart.

That flush of red all over spills into his organs.  He needs to get away, to abandon this mission but –

“Captain. _Payne_.”

It’s Louis, in his ear, loud and a little exasperated.

Liam looks up but his vision is dizzy.  It’s nothing but _red_.  Fuzzy blotches, explosions behind his eyelids, the atmosphere heavy with something that twists his stomach into tight knots.

“Payno,” Louis barks, “Watch your two o’clock.”

Liam can’t take his eyes away from Zayn.  The music throbs in his ears, a rough _‘and I’m puffing my chest’_ that floats through his bloodstream.  There’s heat along his veins.  Something twitching in his gut.  Just below his navel, a surge down to his dick.

He hates the way Zayn smiles but he hates that bloke’s hand slowly crawling down Zayn’s shirt towards his trousers even more.

“Payne.  Liam.”

“On your six, Captain,” Harry says, an urgency in his slow drawl.  “They don’t look like friendlies.”

It shakes him from his daze – the sound of Harry’s voice.  His muscles tense, eyes blinking rapidly before he starts to look around.  His fingers throb for his shield, this sudden rush of adrenaline he’s grown accustom to.

He spots them in the heart of the crowd, parting all of the grinding bodies like a giant shark splitting sea water.  They’re like shadows – dressed in all black, a small group walking shoulder to shoulder.  All of their steps are synchronized like a platoon and they’re swift.

Moving towards Zayn.  Closer, closer, _almost_.

There’s a girl with choppy hair, dark smudged eyeliner, a crooked smile on her mouth.  She’s in front, guiding them, snorting at all of the people they knock out of the way.  The lights spin off her small body, catching on something that shines between her fingers.

She’s unfamiliar to Liam but he can see it lit in her eyes – her intentions.  The blade spinning between her fingers, the curve of her smile when they get even closer.

“Shit.  It’s Lloyd,” Louis hisses, his voice still distorted in Liam’s in-ear.  “Harry, move in.  Captain, get Malik.”

Louis has never quite been a leader.  A loner, probably, but never the man calling the shots.  He’s selfish in the field, competing with the other agents for the most kills or securing a getaway more for himself than others.  But he’s not a _leader_ – by choice.

The rhythm of Liam’s heart, unsteady, wavering like the start of a song that’s too fast for the lyrics, leaves him aware.  Right now, Louis is in charge.

His reflexes kick in immediately.  He springs behind the bar while Harry slides over the countertop, bow already drawn.  His aim is incredible – a clean cut shot through a mass of bodies.  It takes down one of the men, unraveling their line, creating a chaotic distraction.

Liam grabs his shield and shoves around the fleeing bodies.  The screams echo over the music, preventing Liam from hearing Louis.

He doesn’t care.  He’s got one mission, one order.

_Zayn_.

There’s a sharp pop of gunshots, bullets aimed at the sky, some towards Liam as he dashes into the heat of the crowd.  He deflects them with his shield, ducking behind it while still sprinting forward.

Harry’s there first, smacking away guns with his bow, a sharp elbow cracking a nose until it’s stained with blood.

The lights spin faster and faster, dizzy strobes.  The adrenaline in his blood multiplies until there’s no oxygen cells left.  Just this heat that he thrives off.  A chaos deep down in his chest, that mantra he lives off –

_fight, fight, fight_

– and he uses it to vault from the floor into the throbbing core of the crowd.  He cracks bones with his shield, leans low to sweep a man off his feet, thumps a fist into someone’s chest to send him to the ground.

The girl, from earlier, is so close now.  She’s crowded into his vision, a few steps from Zayn.  Her arm drawn back, blade glimmering in the unsteady lights.

Liam sweeps in without thinking.  He shoulders a line of men back before stepping between Zayn and her blade.  It’s _instinct_ – it’s what they call it, he knows it – when he lifts a foot and kicks her in the gut.

She flies back, tumbling into a mountain of squirming bodies.  She scowls, grunting for air, jagged knife still clutched between her fingers.  A growl crossing her parted lips is all he can hear.

Her shouting is muffled by the heavy buzz of music but Liam spots them – three to his right, two coming from the left.  He digs his feet in, shield raised, chest heaving.

He’s a wall between them and Zayn and he won’t crumble.  He won’t fail his _mission_ – no, this boy.

“Captain!” Louis barks, swinging in.  He takes down two without much effort, smooth like a cat, flexible like a gymnast.

“It’s ‘bout time, Tommo,” Harry laughs, dodging fists thrown at his jaw, quick hands finding a new arrow and piercing it through a hand holding a gun.

“Shut up, Haz,” Louis grunts, deflecting a raised gun.  He climbs the back of a rather large man with little struggle, bracketing his head with knees, ankles crossed.

Liam watches Louis take him down with a jolt of electricity from his wristbands.  He rolls to his feet, grinning over his shoulder at Harry.

Harry smirks back, shaking his head.  “Showoff.”

“Amateur,” Louis calls back, clipping another target.  He pulls a tight wire chord from out of nowhere, wrapping it around a throat, choking one man while kicking blindly at another.

“Lloyd has her eyes on Malik,” Harry huffs, reaching back to fire an arrow into one of the chandeliers.

It crashes like a snare, glass flying like paper airplanes.  Glitter and dust and bodies piling up around them.

“Get Malik out of here, Payno,” Louis snaps, stepping between the girl’s blade and its intended target.

They struggle, kicks and fists.  She lands an uppercut to Louis’ jaw but he counters with a knee to her side and they stumble out of the way.

Liam hauls his shield onto his back, glances down to his feet.

Zayn is struggling beneath an unconscious bloke – the one pressed to Zayn from earlier with the lips and hands and his mouth bloody now.  Zayn’s got frantic eyes, hair mussed, his shirt torn.

“Captain,” Harry whines, Liam’s head jerking up to watch Harry smash a beer bottle on someone’s head.  “Go!  We’ll cover, mate.”

There’s a throb deep in his marrow – pulse, pulse, pulse.  It’s a head trip, really.  A mental time bomb.  That last breath you take before a car wreck.

He grips it, deep in his stomach, holding a burning coal in your palm.  Zayn is still trying to crawl on the floor, at Liam’s feet, wincing.  Liam doesn’t even think.

He doesn’t imagine he could if he was given a moment to.

Liam scoops Zayn off the floor, hauls him over a shoulder before anyone can get too close.  Zayn’s fighting back, squirming, trying to get away.  He’s throwing his fists, kicking his feet but Liam refuses to let go.  He drowns out Zayn’s shouting with his own breathing and spins away from the chaos on the dance floor.

He shoves through the crowd and runs.  He runs towards nothing.  He just keeps running.

 

++

 

Liam manages through the empty kitchen of the club, around steel tables and the wait staff and all the way to the emergency exit.  He knocks through the door and into the damp night, some back alley where no one can see them.

Somewhere no one can really pay attention to Zayn’s hoarse shouting.

“Lemme go!  Leeyum!”

His brain is still scrambled.  His adrenaline is catching up with his muscles, peeling them away from the bone.  He can taste it – _the fear_.

Not for himself.  For Zayn.

Liam lowers Zayn, dull fists thumping against his chest until he can’t stand it.

His anger overflows and he – Liam grips his hands around Zayn’s biceps and slams him into the brick wall behind him.  He pants hot breaths through his clenched teeth while his fingers wrap tightly around Zayn’s wrists, pinning them to the wall.

The night is dense with dew, the overlay before a thunderstorm.  Humidity slicks their clothes, moisture beading over their foreheads.  A bronze street lamp shines down creases of the alley and over Zayn’s face.

He’s panicked and pissed from too much booze and, underneath the layers, a little bit terrified.

But Liam keeps Zayn’s wrists to the wall until he stops trying to fight back.

“Malik, calm – “

Zayn shoots him a scowl, a rage in his eyes.  He struggles against Liam again.

“Zayn,” Liam barks but the last letter is soft, quiet.

Liam doesn’t beg.  He’s never pleaded for his life.  But, in the shadows and the dampness, he _almost_ –

Zayn stops.  His chest is puffing, lifting and falling like the waves of an ocean.  Sweat is smeared across his skin, a slick shine that washes out his color under the lamp.  Half-shadows hide most of him but the bluish glow from beneath his torn shirt lights up Zayn’s face.

Liam can see his lip bleeding, a red that stains over Zayn’s chin.  All of the ink on his collarbone shows from the ripped shirt and Liam can almost hear Zayn’s heart – tick-tock like a sped up clock, the gears falling apart.

“Get me,” Zayn stutters.  He pants with half-lidded eyes, his eyebrows lowered.  His jaw goes slack before he stammers, “Ge-Get me _out_.  Outta here.”

He watches Zayn’s mouth, cut and pulled tight.  His jaw clenches tightly under the pale lighting.

“ _Stop_ – get off of me,” Zayn growls, trying to shove back.

Liam tightens his fingers until he can feel Zayn’s pulse point, the way his bones shift under his skin as he struggles.  He presses Zayn further into the bricks, shaking his head.

He gets so close, too close.  Their foreheads almost touch and Liam can’t stop shaking his head.  He can’t get his throat to shove the words up.  He can’t function.

Zayn is a _mission_ –

His eyes are wide, a collection of splintered light in them when he looks down at Liam’s mouth.  His tongue sneaks out to lick away the blood while his brow wrinkles.  The sweat makes him look flushed and shiny but Liam doesn’t bother looking at anything else.

Well, except the way Zayn’s long eyelashes flutter over his cheek like the sway of palm trees in a heavy breeze before he closes his eyes.

Before he leans up so quickly that Liam can’t react.  He presses his mouth to Liam’s and breathes a long exhale.  It’s gentle for a moment, a numbness Liam could never get used to.  Just a quiet pressure that builds and builds and then –

It’s frantic.  It’s Zayn squirming again to escape Liam’s grip but not to run.  To get a little closer.  To kiss Liam firmer.

Liam’s so unsure.  He’s never – he hasn’t done this, okay?  Not in decades.  Not properly, even then.  He’s certain he’s seen enough Hollywood kisses to know where to put his mouth and how to steady himself and how _gentle_ he should be until it’s rough.

So Liam kisses back.  He lets his jaw go slack and mouths along Zayn’s lips until he can taste the copper sting of blood.  Until all his breathing is through his nose and his fingers curl around Zayn’s wrist but for a completely different reason.

That tick-tock under Zayn’s shirt, spreading over Liam’s chest, uncoordinated hearts in the night.

Liam pulls off first, breathless.  He stops Zayn from charging up for more, hot fingers pressed to cold metal under Zayn’s shirt.

He presses their foreheads together and looks down.  Puddles under their feet.  His heavy boots unlaced.  The stains and dirt on Zayn’s trousers from crawling on the floor.  A flash of their skin – honey and tan – against the old brick of a wall behind Zayn.

His tongue slides over his mouth, pulling in the sharp metallic flavor of Zayn’s blood.

“Get me out of here,” Zayn whimpers, his voice rough.

Liam wonders did he create that, did his mouth leave Zayn that unable to speak.  It drowns, like everything else, in the back of his mind when Zayn whispers, “ _please_ , Liam.”

His mind is completely scrambled and he knows he only has seconds.  A slow countdown before the fight inside the club spills outside.  Before someone tries to find Zayn.  The dull squeal of sirens in the distance and he can still see people scattering into the streets, panic and horror.

And he can’t stop thinking about Zayn.

_Keep him safe_.

He’s a mission but –

Liam bites down on his bottom lip, eyes drifting shut.  He can only think of one place.

 

++

 

Germany taught Liam many things.

How to hotwire a vehicle is one of them.  Not his proudest moment but still.  It was enough, especially with Andy and their band of rebels in tow.  Some nights, between the bitter cold and a hundred kilometers between towns, it was their only escape route.

Survival is all he thinks.

Like now – a dark, empty road lit only by the fuzzy glow the headlamps provide.  The trees hanging over the beat-up truck Liam _‘borrowed’_ from a car park a few feet from the club.  Bare limbs reaching out, bracketing the car like bony fingers.  The heater kicking in and out, a smoky fog crawling over the windows.  Gravel from the road spinning under the tires, creating a dusty cloud behind them.  The high, half-moon clipping through the windshield.

A thousand kilometers from the city.  It’s just dancing pinpricks in the rearview now, blinking Christmas lights growing smaller and smaller.

A million yards towards _nothing_.

There’s an occasional orangey overhead light warming the inside of the cab of the truck.  Splintered glow over an unconscious Zayn in the passenger seat, curled against the door.

Liam keeps glancing at him, the radio on low, a soft buzz in their silence.  He stares at the gash on Zayn’s bottom lip.  The dark, dried blood stitched over his pink mouth.  The cut on Zayn’s temple, the one he didn’t notice before.  Messy hair and ruined clothes and the sharp shine of the arc reactor shoved into the center of Zayn’s chest, glowing under the wrinkled shirt with the missing buttons.

He swallows, blinks until he’s looking straightforward.  Into the dust and fog and open road.  The quiet hum of Bon Iver in the background –

he knows the song because of Harry, sharing headphones in the cabin of a jet, another moment checked off his scribbled list

– but all he can hear is Zayn’s rough breathing as he sleeps.

It’s loud, in his head, chasing the sounds he can still remember from the club.

He whispers, into the dark and the stillness, a simple _‘cause I’m blinded, blindsided’_ while watching the barren road ahead.

Liam keeps one hand on the steering wheel, close to the twelve o’clock position, fingers gripping tight and releasing to tap out the rhythm of the music.  He reaches out, blindly, with a spare hand to brush Zayn’s hair off of his forehead.  It’s sticky from product but a bit soft.  Tangled, really.  He wipes away the sweat gathered on Zayn’s brow, feels the heat vibrating off of him.

_Too hot_ , he thinks.  He keeps driving.

His calloused fingers slip when the music changes.  Over and under Zayn’s jaw, checking his pulse.

It’s strong.  He’s breathing.

Zayn is beaten, bruised, almost shivering but – _Zayn is safe_.

Liam keeps his fingers there, stroking the skin absently.  He does it without admitting to himself that it’s just to _touch_ Zayn.

The road remains empty but the cab of the truck feels so full.

 

++

 

It’s a little after dawn, all of this restless energy gathered in Liam’s muscles and bones, when he drags the truck up a windy hill towards a cabin in the middle of the woods.  In the middle of nothing, really.  So close to the Midlands.  So close to _home_.

Except, Liam doesn’t know that home anymore.

The sky looks like it’s in the middle of a graffiti war – all pinks and purples and blues blotting everything.  The fireball of a sun is still too low to light up the surroundings.  Frost sticks to everything, including the patches of dead grass leading up to the cabin.

Zayn is still asleep, balled in on himself when Liam yanks the keys from the ignition.  Dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t had a proper rest in years – in _decades_.  Eyelashes flicking dark shadows on his cheeks.

Liam shakes his head, sighing.  He climbs out the cab and carefully cradles Zayn into his arms when he gets to the passenger side.  The rising sun freckles the sky in orange but the only heat Liam can feel is Zayn pressed in his arms, legs dangling, nose pressed to Liam’s armpit.

Zayn is wiry, light, weightless in his arms.  Liam doesn’t struggle to move up the gravel pathway towards the cabin.  He doesn’t jump or recoil when he sees an elderly woman waiting for them on the porch.

She’s got silver hair, bright even in the hanging darkness, like her mum’s.  Wrinkles around her smile, moonlight blue eyes.  She leans on a cane, carefully lifting her brow at him.

“Lux,” he breathes and she greets him with a wider, shaky smile.

“Do you need anything, Liam?” she asks, her voice wobbly when he steps up onto the wooden porch.

It’s so nice to hear her voice, to be called anything other than _Payne_ or _Captain Britain_ by a familiar face.

He shakes his head, unable to do anything but hide the width of his smile in Zayn’s wrecked hair.

“No, I can manage.  Thank you, Lux.”

She smiles, wrinkled with squinty eyes.  It takes her a moment to shift out of the way – he can still remember her being so young, full of energy.  Running around him in quick circles, giggling into her tiny hands when he got dizzy.

Seventy years ago.

“No one has called me that in years, Liam.  Not since mum passed on,” she sighs, gentling a sadder smile over her lips.

His heart speeds up under the cage of ribs Zayn’s temple is pressed to.  He grins a little, ducking his head.  It’s embarrassing, the way his cheeks relax into the pink flush.

“He’s quite the looker,” she comments, easing down the steps.  “Is he not famous?”

Liam shrugs.  He doesn’t look down at Zayn.  He hasn’t found a reason to in minutes.

“He’s not important,” he scoffs.

She giggles.  The sound is almost identical to a smaller version of this girl – no, _woman_ now.  Aged and frail.

“Important enough for you to come back here,” she remarks.  She takes a few shaky breaths, laughing through a cough.  “You never bring anyone here, Liam.  Always alone.  S’just you, all of the time.”

She walks away, slow and careful.  Halfway to her own truck, she grins over the hood, patting the rusted metal surface until he looks over his shoulder.

“I’ll bring groceries by later, my dear,” she says.  “So wonderful to see you looking just like you did – so long ago.”

Liam licks his lips – he can’t taste Zayn there anymore, thankfully – and tugs open the door after adjusting Zayn in his arms.  He breathes in the dust, the stiff air inside of the cabin before walking inside.  Towards the dark.

Towards a place meant to feel like home.

 

++

 

“Where the fuck are we?”

Liam stands in the doorway of the cabin, a pile of chopped wood stacked in his arms.  He shoots Zayn a carefully blank expression.  His teeth pull in his bottom lip but he doesn’t move.

He’s been _expecting_ this, honestly.  He’s been counting down the hours while Zayn slept off the last of his adrenaline high in Liam’s messy bed.  He’s been sat on the porch, slumped over in an old wooden rocking chair, watching the sun brush light against a bare blue sky.  A wide cast of gold falling between the trees, over the rumpled grass, giving a dull shine to their _‘borrowed’_ getaway vehicle.

Liam has been counting the seconds between breaths for this –

Regretfully, he thinks it was all wasted time.

Zayn is propped against the wall just outside of the bedroom, gently pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger.  His shirt is coming apart at the threads, fitting much looser than it did hours ago.  His bottom lip is a bit swollen, bruised, his hair scattered like an inky ball of spikes.

Liam thinks, even in the late morning glow, Zayn still looks sort of breathtaking.

His muscles tense and a shiver rakes down his spine.  He silently wishes he could take those last five seconds back.

“Nowhere,” Liam mumbles while setting down the wood by the barren fireplace.  “Now shut it.”

Zayn glares at him, fringe half in his eyes, lips parted.  His heavy eyebrows lower when Liam looks up, a childish pout already forming across his mouth.

A complete waste of time.

“But – “

“You’re _safe_ , Zayn,” Liam interrupts, moving about the cabin.  He searches through the cupboards for supplies, a clean mug, a kettle – anything to keep his eyes off of Zayn for a moment.  “S’all that matters, right?”

There’s a loud breath, something like a sigh, in the distance that he ignores.

“Have you, like, kidnapped me or – “

His nose scrunches instantly.  He bites down on his tongue, the slow crawl of bile in his throat refusing to sink back down.  He stares out the small box window over the sink.  He glares at the wilderness and the wide reach of the sun over everything.

It’s a sight he usually takes a calming breath to but not now.

He shouldn’t have brought Zayn here.

Liam’s fingers curl around the basin, slow breaths, counting backwards with his tongue caught between his teeth.  He glances over his shoulder, Zayn mucking about the room.  He looks lost.  In the half-shade of sun creeping through an old window, he looks young and trying so hard to look arrogant.  Ruthlessly cocky.

He’s trying to be _brave_.

“M’keeping you safe,” Liam mumbles, staring down at his white knuckles.  He tightens his grip.

Out the corner of his eye he can see his shield lying lazily by an old chair in a corner.  A thick afghan tossed over the back of the dusty sofa.  A copy of _the Hobbit_ , still opened to the page he left off on, resting near the window.  His bomber jacket balled up like an extra pillow in a wedge of cushions.

Zayn doesn’t fit in here and it’s a little too close to the way Liam doesn’t fit in – _anywhere_.

“How long?” Zayn asks, a hand in his hair.

Liam swallows, tries not to think.  “Just ‘til – when I know it’s clear.  Just until I can – just for now.”

Zayn lets off a huff, another long sigh.  “And what am I supposed to do for clothes?”

He’s picking at his shirt, trying to piece it together.  His trousers are stained in dirt, spilt alcohol.  Liam smirks to himself, lowers his head some to cover his laugh.

“I once spent a week behind enemy lines in the same clothes, Malik.”

Zayn wrinkles his brow, looks incredulous when Liam glances at him.  “Sounds horrible,” he says, indignant.  “A week without a proper pair of pants?  I bet the boys in the platoon loved waking to the stink of your bullocks every morning, mate.”

Liam’s shoulders go wire tight.  He grits his teeth, an old habit that just won’t leave, before he stomps into the living room.  He scoops up a pile of old clothes, things he’s gathered from the closets that have that sticky scent of dust to them.

“Shove off, Malik,” he growls, low and deep, tossing the clothes at Zayn.  “You don’t know anything about me mates.  About war.”

He can hear Zayn’s heavy breathing, old jeans hanging off his shoulder, a jumper wrinkled in his hands.  Liam narrows his eyes at Zayn.  It takes him a second to recognize the way all of Zayn’s features are soft between the hard edge of his face, the cuts and the bruise slowly forming under his jaw.

An almost apologetic tilt to his head that seems so fleeting when Zayn catches Liam staring at him.

“We need to lay low,” Liam adds, moving away before his heart finally catches up with his thoughts, “if y’know what that even means.”

It comes out rough, unintentionally, but he doesn’t apologize for it.  Because Zayn is thoughtless.  He’s a bit selfish.  He’s flash and substance and he knows nothing about survival.

Not like Liam does.

Zayn scowls at him.  “Fuck off.”

Everything stiffens under his skin.  He instinctively thinks of punching Zayn.  He wants to add another bruise to his skin – his ego, too.  He thinks of having a go with Zayn because –

He _hates_ Zayn.

But it all seems empty, senseless.  It’s something Tomlinson would do, maybe Styles after a few too many beers.  So he lets the throb circulate his bones and he swallows down all of the words he knows would hurt.

He turns back to Zayn, heart leapt into his throat, Zayn’s head hanging low, his hands turning the clothes over and over between them.  The sun brackets his wide shoulders and his teeth are absently picking at the dried blood on his lip.

Just a pup trying to fill out a wolf’s clothes.

Liam brushes a hand over his hair, almost instantly dropping a warm palm across the nape of his neck.  He waits until Zayn looks up through his eyelashes, face hardening but Liam knows better.

“C’mon,” he sighs, dragging his boots over the hardwood floor.  It creaks and groans, overlapping Zayn’s ragged breaths.  “Are you hungry?”

It’s just enough.  Zayn’s shoulders sag and a small brush of relief washes over him.  There’s still dark edges under his eyes, his face pale, his shirt slipping down his shoulder.

“M’starved,” he mumbles, this time without the anger or resentment.

 

++

 

They’re sat at an old diner not but a few kilometers from the cabin.  The booth squeaks with every move they make, the leather cracked, the cushioning peeking out.  It’s quiet with that sort of calm Liam clings to in the morning.  Just some antique jukebox propped in the corner playing all of his favorite tunes from a childhood long gone.  The occasional chime of the bell over the door, a waitress milling about while humming along to Frank Sinatra.  The chef in the kitchen, slapping plates down, loudly calling up orders.

Zayn’s soft, soft breathing across from him.

It’s a lingering silence they sit in.  Careful bites, noisy slurps just because they can’t fill _this_ with words.

They eat a fry-up, steaming bowls of homemade porridge, Zayn making a face at Liam’s greasy bacon – _‘I don’t eat pig,_ ’ he mumbles between bites of salty hash – and cups of coffee and orange juice.  Just the scrape of their forks on the plates and quick glances at each other between bites.

Liam doesn’t think he wants to know what Zayn is thinking, anyway.

But, actually, he sort of does.  He’s stubborn enough not to ask and Zayn keeps looking around like he’s in disbelief.  Like he’s never seen something so vintage.

Almost like this world is foreign to him and Liam rather enjoys that – for once, not being the stranger in a new world.

The waitress buzzes by their table, refilling Liam’s mug.  She looks over Zayn for a long minute, failing to be discrete with her wide eyes, gapped mouth.

She sets tea for Zayn, leaving behind the kettle and extra packets of sugar without being asked.  A small carafe of milk at the corner of the table.  There’s blush high on her cheeks when Liam looks up at her because he’s unable to hide his amused expression.

“Good to see you ‘round town, Liam,” she mutters, giggling, striding off to her next table.

“You’ve been here much?” Zayn asks after a heartbeat, speaking around a mouthful of buttered toast.

Liam shoots him a playfully disapproving look.  He sips quietly at his coffee, inhaling the dark aroma.  It settles him, bone-deep, the world still so brilliantly quiet around them.

There’s a calm ripple right down his spine and the sun reflecting off the salt and pepper shakers to outline the softness hidden in Zayn’s face.

_Bloody hell_.

Liam nods at him, twisting his mouth.  “We all have our secrets,” he mumbles, dropping his chin.

_Damn Louis Tomlinson_ , he thinks.

Zayn hums and reaches for his tea, thickening it with sugar and milk.  His eyes stay lowered, eyelashes nothing but thick shadows on his cheeks.  Scratches along his knuckles.  His pink mouth still a little red and swollen.

Liam looks over Zayn while he’s distracted.  He hasn’t quite taken him in since the cabin but – he’s wearing one of Liam’s jumpers, two-sizes too big on him.  The collar stretched, the sleeves tugged all the way down to his second knuckles.  His hair is still a dark mess, curvy spikes like a thoughtful poet’s words.  That scratch still lines his lip and Zayn winces when the hot tea brushes over it, dragging his fingers over the wound.

He looks shifty in the booth opposite of Liam.  He looks a bit exhausted still, overwhelmed.

“Alright?” Liam asks, pressing his elbows on the table.

Zayn sighs but he doesn’t lift his eyes.  He flinches when his tongue automatically licks out, brushing across the cut.  He looks around the diner again, quick, sharp movements like he’s _expecting_ something.  Like he’s on edge, waiting for the fall.

“I’m nervous, okay?” Zayn hisses, brushing the fringe off of his forehead.  “Almost died – _again_ – back there.”

Liam nods, slowly.  Another gulp of coffee, another few seconds watching Zayn curl in on himself.

He wants to claim insanity or something like that but his body doesn’t give his mind the time to consider it all.  His hand navigates through the mess they’ve created on the table – the balled up napkins, finished plates, empty cups – and he rests it over Zayn’s.  He folds his warm heat around a trembling hand, giving it a soft squeeze.

His calloused fingers brush repeatedly over scarred knuckles, Bing Crosby on the jukebox.  His teeth seesaw over his lip and Zayn looks up through those thick eyelashes –

Liam yanks his hand back like he’s been scalded.  He stammers in his seat, dropping his hand under the table, shaking it like he’s been burned.

Like he can’t get the feel of Zayn’s skin out of his mind.

It doesn’t work and he’s not even sure why he was trying to comfort Zayn in the first place.

There’s a snort from across the table.  Liam glances at Zayn, his brow wrinkled.

Zayn’s grinning around a sip of tea.  All of the endearment is burnt off.  He slips so smoothly back into that arrogance, even if it is a little humbled now.

It still irritates Liam in the worst way, fingers instantly curling into fists under the table.

“Was that,” Zayn pauses for a second, smiling down into his tea, “I mean, I’m just curious, okay?  But was that your first snog since before the war?”

“We didn’t snog,” Liam mumbles, his eyebrows wrinkling, his face scrunched.  “Was barely a kiss.”

Zayn hums, still smirking into his steamy tea.  He gives a careless shrug before adding, “Funny, it felt like one, mate.”

Liam looks up and Zayn makes a small hand gesture, his index finger and thumb almost touching like he’s giving Liam something to relate to.  “Just a tiny bit,” he smiles.

Liam groans and laughs to cover up the thick blush running down his cheeks.

“Was it that horrible?” he wonders, shamefully ducking his head when his voice cracks.

“Not hardly,” Zayn smiles into the cuff of his baggy jumper.  “S’not every day you snog a dinosaur, y‘know?”

Liam’s eyes go wide, his lips naturally twisting into a lopsided grin.  He kicks Zayn’s ankle under the table, rattling the empty dishes around.  A laugh slips past his lips – an accident, he’s certain – before he says, “It was bad.”

Zayn shakes his head, something like a smile still burned across his swollen lip.  He lowers his eyes and Liam’s almost sure it’s not because he’s bashful.

He’s too arrogant for that.

“It wasn’t,” Zayn says, low and absent, ghosting the tips of his fingers over his lips.  “I can tell you kiss like you’ve cared for someone before.”

It’s a stark, hollowed breath that burns down the middle of Liam’s chest.  It rattles in his ribcage and he’s unprepared for it.  He’s not ready for the reminder –

Her pretty red smile behind his eyelids, toxic solar colors in green and blue, this lightheaded sensation like everything is _wrong_.

It has been since the ice.  This drowning feeling.

He frowns, looking down at his shaking hands in his lap.  His throat closes on all of the words he intended to say and Zayn doesn’t try to nudge him out of this feeling.  He sips quietly at his tea and the world hums quietly around them again.

Liam owes her a dance.  A kiss.  He’ll never get any of that back.

 

++

 

The cabin stirs softly in their tense silence, their breathing trying to fill in all of the empty spaces.

Liam rolls his shoulders, his loose vest hanging off his damp skin.  He shadowboxes across some poorly woven rug, eyes on the wood walls, on the sun falling like a shiny copper coin in the sea outside the windows.  His ragged breathing keeps buzzing in his ears because he can’t hear Zayn.

He doesn’t want to.  He needs focus.  He needs a center.

But still –

Liam can’t help the little looks he tosses to a corner of the room.  Zayn curled in a dusty old longue chair, knees pulled up, the sleeves of the jumper still pulled over his knuckles.  There’s an open book balanced on his thighs, a mug of cold tea on an end table.

The shine under the cotton shows just slightly in the shadows.  It grazes the outline of his jaw, his evening stubble.  It catches the way his head is tipped down while he licks a thumb, turns another page.  He hums softly, to himself, never looking up.

Not on purpose, of course.

Sometimes when Liam hauls in a loud breath or when he throws jabs at an invisible opponent a little too close to where Zayn is sat.  It’s just little blurs in Liam’s peripheral but he remembers it.

He remembers all of the little looks.  It’s horrible.

Zayn is thumbing through a tattered copy of _the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ , stolen from an old bookcase that doesn’t have much of a collection to fill the shelves.  Just old novels from his childhood, things Liam hasn’t bothered to look at in a lifetime.  Still, he refuses to throw them away.

They’re his childhood.  All of the stories his mum would read to him, in the dark of an old house, the hollow of a lamp outlining her kind face with her fingers in his messy hair.

A pink tongue flicks over the pad of Zayn’s thumb again, bits of fringe falling in his eyes from wrecked hair.  It tenses something awful in Liam’s muscles – an ache that’s so artfully delicious he won’t be able to shake it if he tried – until he stops in the middle of the room.

He takes a quick swallow of water, scrubbing the sweat from his face with a towel.  He stares down at Zayn, examining him for a moment.

“My mum,” he pants, his chest rising so hard, so fast when Zayn glances up at him.  An unwanted blush prickles his cheeks but he says, “My mum – she, um, she bought it for me.  Used to read to me before me bedtime.”

Zayn blinks at him, tilting his head.

Liam shrugs, taking another long sip of water.  “It was a long time ago.  Doesn’t matter.”

He turns on his heels, rolling his shoulder repeatedly to shake off the tension –

To lift the weight of Zayn looking at him off his spine.

Zayn bites along his lip, carefully away from his cut.  Something quirks the corners of his mouth.  “I’m a bit of a comic book lad me’self.  Well, a _geek_ ,” he says, chuckling.  “I’m proper nerdy when it comes to ‘em.  Nice collection at me flat.”

Liam’s fingers brush liberally on that knot at the top of his spine.  He smiles into the crook of his elbow.  “I was a bit into Batman before the war,” he admits, laughing through the shiver that follows Zayn’s giggle from the chair.  “Dunno if they really still, like, is he still a _thing_?”

Long eyelashes flutter like a hummingbird’s wings on Zayn’s cheeks.  “He’s massive, man,” he says through a chuckle that turns his voice into this breathy noise.  “I’m a fan.”

He wishes it was a cold, crippling feeling rushing up his spine but it’s not.  Liam keeps his smile pressed to that soft skin on the inside of his elbow, some synthesized rhythm to his heart loud in his ears.

Too loud.  He feels ridiculous about it all.

“That’s, well,” Liam huffs quietly, eyes on the ground.  “S’nice.”

“If only comic book heroes were a real thing,” Zayn says, even softer.  He’s pulling fingers through his hair, wincing at the tangles.  “This place is too weird and fucked up for things like that, innit?”

Liam swallows, his heart steadying out.  “There’s good people in this world, Malik,” he points out.

Zayn snorts but his smile is a little sad, slowly falling into something else.  “My parents were good people, Payne, and they’re dead,” he mumbles before lowering his eyes again.  “This world doesn’t let the good people live.”

He curls around himself again, head lowered, eyes on the book.  Liam stands there, briefly, watching him.  He’s waiting for Zayn to say something else but he doesn’t.  His breathing gets softer and he pretends Liam doesn’t exist again.

Just their silence and the way it still can’t fit into all of the spaces of the cabin.

Liam thinks, angrily, he didn’t want to be bothered with chatting with Zayn either.

 

++

 

He likes the water pelting across his spine, scalding hot as it slides down his muscles.  He loves the sting over his skin.  Right along the nape of his neck.  A hand pressed to the cracked tile and his head bowed.

Everything feels numb in here.

He doesn’t have to think when his mind is stuck on the burn.  The steam filling his lungs with warm smoke from the shower.

His eyelashes stick together, clumps holding up heavy drops of water.  His hand keeps slipping on the tile, his spare hand stroking over the clenched muscles of his stomach.

Liam doesn’t cry here.  He never does.  But, sometimes, he thinks there’s something else dampening his cheeks besides the sharp brush of hot water.

Something salty over his upper lip.

His mind goes blank, just for a few breaths, until he stops breathing so hard.  But –

It replays over and over like a loop of commercials on late night television.  Zayn’s mouth over his.  Fingers curling into his clothes, his own knuckles scratching off the skin over the brick wall behind Zayn.  The soft press of their lips no matter how rough Zayn tried to kiss him.

The way _he kissed Zayn_ back.

It’s like being in a wind tunnel, the sound in Liam’s ears, but all he can hear is Zayn’s shallow breathing.

He can taste Zayn’s blood on his tongue – sharp and metallic.

His cock keeps twitching, filling up until he’s hard.  He’s throbbing between his thighs.  The foreskin is stretching and the head of his dick is so pink.  It’s so wet from something other than the water.

Zayn crowds into his brain and his fingers keep brushing the thick hairs just above his cock.  They press down the broad strip of hair under the lip of his navel.  He keeps stopping himself, shaking his hand away when it almost slips down further.

He won’t wank off thinking about Zayn.  He won’t _think_ about Zayn.

But the kiss keeps replaying, over and over, that filthy image of Zayn’s mouth slicking over his until the adrenaline from that night fuses into his bones and he can’t look away from his full cock bobbing under the waterfall sliding down his stomach.

He bites his lip until it almost bleeds but it doesn’t help.

It only makes him think of Zayn _more_ and he presses both of his palms to the slick wall until the water goes cold.

 

++

 

There is something so harsh surrounding the grey in his dreams.  The black always inks itself in, bleeding into everything.  Charcoal smudges in his mind.

It burns lead around those moments he loves best with Andy – shoving each other around, Andy throwing a heavy arm around his shoulders.  Small, defenseless versions of himself looking up to Andy.  Like a brother.  Like an inspiration.

Like a _hero_.

The jokes Andy tossed at him after the serum.  The way all of Andy’s punches to his shoulder stopped stinging, started bouncing back.  He could outrun Andy, laughter in his lungs, Andy doubled over and wheezing after a few kilometers.

It’s nothing but rogue shards of grey around everything, especially Andy.

In a tent, somewhere in the field, balled under a thick blanket and whimpering _‘he’s dead, my brother is dead’_ over and over until he can’t recognize the sob in his voice.

Strong, tall, _heroic_ Captain Britain.  A pile of tears and numb fingers in the middle of a war.

He jolts from his dream, that familiar sweat all over his skin, his breathing out of rhythm.  It aches in his head.  It takes his eyes a few deep blinks to adjust to the dark of the cabin – the comfy sofa, the thick afghan thrown over his legs, the fire still crackling a few yards away.

Liam’s given up the bedroom for Zayn and he doesn’t mind this space, really.  It keeps him alert, prepared for anything.  His shield is a small reach away but that twist in his gut tightens, painfully.

Andy is still dead.

He tiptoes over cold floors with bare feet for an icy drink of water.  It does little to clear the electric pulses from his blood but it calms him just enough.

This world is filled with so much _just enough_ that he thinks he’ll choke.

An hour later, he can’t remove himself from the middle of the room, sat by the fire, arms hugging around his knees.  He picks at the loose threads of his joggers while watching the fire.  He finds his peace here – in the quiet.

The world is soft and noiseless around him.  It’s all just orange fuzz from the flames.

A pale bluish wash covers most of the room from a full moon, making his wriggling toes look silver.  The room has a smoke and dust scent he inhales repeatedly to knock the burn out of his chest.  He chews at his lip and watches the dancing flames.  A ruddy orange on his irises.  A distraction.

He can hear muted feet on the hardwood floor.  He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, straining his neck to glance over his shoulder.

Zayn is stood with a wooly blanket hanging off his wide, slender shoulders.  He’s scratching absently at his stomach with soft, sleep-heavy eyes and shagged out dark hair.

The fire flecks wavy glowing light off of Zayn’s exposed collarbones, the shine of something underneath one of Liam’s old plaid flannels, wrinkled with half of the buttons undone.  Stolen boxers, a pale green and too loose on Zayn’s narrow waist.

Zayn pads over, scowling at the cold floor but it looks amusing on him in the dark.  He looks like a teenager still caught in a hangover.

“Can’t sleep?” Zayn asks while trying to tug the blanket further around his shoulders.

Liam nods slowly, twisting back towards the fire.  The heat is hot on his face but he’s fond of it.  Of the way it burns his thoughts into half-glowing embers.

“Me neither,” Zayn shrugs, lips falling into a tender frown.

“Try _harder_ ,” Liam mumbles.  His brow wrinkles as he looks down at his feet.

He doesn’t want Zayn here, not now.  He needs his quiet.  The world needs to stop spinning and he needs freedom from his thoughts.

“D’you want me to go away or summat?” Zayn growls, the noise deep in his throat, barely noticeable.

Liam shakes his head.  He knows better.  In his marrow, between his blood vessels, he bloody well knows better but he can’t stop –

He pats an empty space on the floor next to him.  He refuses to look up but he holds his breath _hoping_ –

Zayn flops down next to him, the blanket falling away.  The room is still chilled, even with the fire, a shiver shaking through Zayn’s muscles.  Their shoulders brush in the dark but neither one of them says a thing.

The quiet Liam needs is still here.

“D’you,” Zayn squints at the fire, half of his words mumbled under his tongue.  He looks at him, sighing, “Do you do this a lot?”

“What?  Watch the fire?” Liam asks, scrunching his brow.

“No – “

Zayn sucks in a quick breath, gnawing at a corner of his lip.  He mimics Liam on the floor, wiry arms curled around his knobby knees.  Toes wiggling on the old carpet.  That faraway look in his eyes.

“I mean, like, not sleeping?”

Liam snorts lowly, tucking his chin.  He nods, eventually, but his tongue is too heavy to say anything else.  Instead, they stay quiet while the fire snaps like driftwood under heavy feet.

Zayn stretches awkwardly, the dust of the fire on the side of his face as he turns slightly towards Liam.  The flannel puckers, still too big on him, and Liam can see the sharp blue light beneath.  He can see the outline of the steel surrounding it, embedded into the center of Zayn’s chest –

he’s distracted by the ink above it, a pair of harsh red lips and large wings spread wide, a devil with wings

– and he can’t take his eyes away.

In another light, he’d call it an infatuation.  Maybe _curiosity_ but he’s not thinking right now, on purpose.  So he hesitantly reaches out, tucking a few fingers beneath the material, skimming over the steel of the arc reactor.  It’s cold, freezing, but Liam imagines all of the skin surrounding it feels hot.

“What was it like?” he asks, a soft whisper under the roar of the fire.

He watches the muscles in Zayn’s throat bob when he swallows.  It’s like he’s taking shallow, uncomfortable breaths but Zayn carefully lifts a hand to flick the last few buttons of the flannel open.  The cotton falls away from his chest and Zayn arches his spine enough for all of Liam’s fingers to touch over the bluish light.

“Can’t remember,” Zayn admits, staring down at Liam’s constantly moving fingers.  “Like, the _almost dying_ part.  I dunno.  I try not to, like, think about it but it’s like a nightmare – “

“Every night?” Liam wonders, keeping his eyes on the sharp glow.

Zayn nods, exhaling heavily.

He’s still not thinking when his spare hand reflexively stretches out to fix the rough hair hanging over Zayn’s forehead.  He brushes it back, his hand trembling, the room nothing but ink and tangerine.

And that hot blue light in the middle of Zayn’s chest.

“I like – I prefer to be alone,” Liam admits, dropping his hand from Zayn’s head.  His eyes flick away quickly when the flush shifts from his cheeks down to his chest.

“It’s easier, right?  Can’t hurt anyone?” Zayn offers.

Liam licks his dry lips.  There’s a huff in his chest that doesn’t quick make its way upwards.  It just sticks to his ribs.  It’s easier that way.

“I use people,” Zayn confesses, his voice tight.

“That’s sick,” Liam mumbles, furrowing his brow.

“Not for sex,” Zayn says instantly, sounding affronted.  “Just to – I was _somebody_ before Dubai, man.  I was another fucking person.  Someone’s _son_.  Just a kid.”

Liam narrows his eyes but he still lifts his head to glare at Zayn.  The fire creates a wavy softness over Zayn’s harsh face.  There’s a sadness in his eyes, a glassy look like he’s holding in frustrated tears.

Like Zayn doesn’t leave himself this open to anyone.

“So I use people to try and forget that,” Zayn explains, his breathing irregular, “because it’s easier knowing they want the money.  The fame.  The image, mate.  All of the things I don’t want.”

“What do you want?” Liam asks.

Zayn presses his lips tightly together.  He scratches over the ink on his forearm while Liam’s fingers circle the arc reactor.  His eyes drop to his feet, his body rocking back and forth slowly.

“M’name is spelled with an _‘I.’_ Ben thought it’d be good to change it.  Make it a little more _market-friendly_ , I s’ppose, changing it to Zayn instead,” he whispers, lips moving crookedly.  He sniffs, sighs, “I want – “

Zayn curls around himself once more.  He wraps his arms tightly around his knees, absently knocking Liam’s hand away from his chest.

“I use people ‘cause I don’t know if they’ll ever want _Zain Malik_ ,” he says with a raspy voice.

Liam’s fingers find the nape of Zayn’s neck rather than the cold steel again.  They push into the skin, brush over thick hair at the bottom of his skull.  He presses into the knotted tension there.  He watches it calm something in Zayn, the electric light slowly dimming.

“But I want them to,” Zayn says, his voice rough, “Like, to want me for the fucking _hole in my chest_ , y’know?  The one filled with metal and palladium to keep me alive.”

Liam watches the frustration wrinkle the skin between Zayn’s eyebrows.  Harsh puffs of air keep slipping through Zayn’s lips.  He curls his fingers into Zayn’s hair, smooth and gentle but his mind starts up again –

Charcoal flooding the grey.

His fingers drag through Zayn’s hair, curling for a loose grip, before he gives it a gentle tug.  His free hand stretches around Zayn, palming his spine with all of these sparks of warning fizzling through his mind.

He ignores them.

Liam hauls Zayn into his lap, his arse sat across Liam’s thighs, legs outstretched with toes warmed by the fire.  Zayn doesn’t feel heavy in his arms, over his legs, but he’s unbalanced.  He’s wobbly and Liam’s hand cups the small of his back to keep him there.

Calloused fingers trail from Zayn’s hair to his face.  The stubble pricks at his thumb but he ignores it.  He outlines Zayn’s sharp cheekbone with his eyes following Zayn’s chapped pink lips.

Zayn shuffles closer, nothing but his uneven breathing filling their space.  Liam cranes his neck and brushes his lips over the skin surrounding the arc reactor.  He needs to _feel_ it – the warmth, the softness.  He kisses a tattoo, another, all of them until he’s outlined the mural over Zayn’s collarbones.

Soft knees along a rough carpet cage Liam’s hips in, thighs tensing with the way Liam’s fingers bump along every knob on Zayn’s spine.  The soft flannel twists between his fingers while Zayn’s slowly filling cock stretches out his boxers, brushing against Liam’s abdomen.  He stares down at Liam, a little awed, wholly confident in a way that annoys Liam –

Or _encourages_ him, like a warm breath blowing the coal of a fire, watching it burning violent orange.

“Should I – “

Liam curls his fingers into Zayn’s hair before he can finish.  He yanks him down, brushing his lips along Zayn’s.  It’s uncoordinated, clumsy, but he can’t quite stop.

He hasn’t bothered listening to the thousands of reasons in the back of his mind telling him not to.

Everything is heavier in his ears – the fire, his blood, his irrational heart – and his focus dims to a flickering ember.  His fingers snag in Zayn’s hair, a soft hiss pushed into his mouth.  There’s a warm hand cradling the nape of his neck that isn’t his own for once.  It’s a kind of pressure that’s different from their mouths – inviting, directing.

He pushes further up and Zayn sinks low and their mouths find the kind of rhythm he’s not ready for.

But he wants it enough to not care.

Zayn doesn’t taste like sour liquor, the aftermath of too many cigarettes this time.  Liam’s mouth opens and Zayn’s tongue slides along his canines.  It flicks over the roof of his mouth, teases over Liam’s own tongue.  Liam sucks on it, unconsciously, pulls in a sharp breath when Zayn moans quietly against his lips.

It’s effortless, really, the way his arms cradle Zayn in his lap.  He rolls his hips, something new from this position, until he can get some friction against the twitching cock in his joggers.  Right along the seam of Zayn’s arse, still hidden behind soft cotton.  It feels incredible.

Zayn pulls back first but Liam fists his fingers into Zayn’s hair, dragging him back while he’s still taking a breath.  A laugh brushes into his mouth, echoing down his throat when he slacks his jaw for Zayn’s tongue again.

“A bit better this time,” Zayn whispers, teeth biting gently on Liam’s bottom lip, “Been practicing?”

“Shut your damn mouth,” Liam huffs but it’s not clouded with frustration.

Just an eagerness that stitches right down his chest.

“I’m just saying,” Zayn gasps, chasing another kiss.  “Not bad for an old man.”

Liam groans, heavy with irritation, but his hand scrambles over Zayn’s arched spine while he tries to rut up against Zayn for more pressure.

Zayn pushes back, his cock peeking out the flap of his boxers.  It drags a slickness across Liam’s belly and he _can’t_ look down.  He’s incredibly aroused, embarrassingly close to tipping over the edge, and his cheeks flush a neon pink at the notion of catching a glimpse of Zayn’s pulsing dick.

“It’s different,” Liam mumbles.

Zayn’s stubble burns over his skin, scratching in this intoxicating way.

“What s’that?” Zayn asks, tilting his head for another kiss.

Liam shrugs.  He’s abashed and admitting aloud that this is the first time he’s done any of this – the snogging, the hands, the thrusting his cock over another bloke’s bum to get off – ever.

Zayn’s eyes are dark coals in the shadows, all of his features catching scratched pieces of orange over them.  His slides his tongue over his lips even though they’re already slick, swollen.

Liam’s done that to him.  He’s made Zayn flushed and sweaty and a little bit wrecked.

He curls his fingers gently to the nape of Zayn’s neck and pulls him back down.  He wants more.

“Doing so good,” Zayn giggles, a hand between them, a thumb brushing the corner of Liam’s mouth.  It pulls at Liam’s jaw before he says, “Open up for me, babe.”

Liam complies a little too quickly.  He squeezes his eyes shut, the pad of Zayn’s mouth catching on his tongue before Zayn licks into Liam’s mouth, grinning.

He’s so damn _smug_ and Liam wants to reprimand him but he loses himself in pulling at Zayn’s shirt and feeling the cold arc reactor pressed to his own bare chest.  He forfeits with words and keeps kissing until his jaw is too sore to move.

When Zayn pulls away again, Liam thinks his whole body snaps to get closer.  Zayn breathes a laugh on his face while Liam’s hands stretch up to cradle Zayn’s cheek.  His ragged breaths puff into the room as Zayn noses under his jaw, teasing Liam’s skin with quiet kisses.

“Still doing alright?” Zayn wonders, his voice husky.

Liam’s done that to him too.  An ample dose of pride soaks his blood and he grins into Zayn’s shoulder, nosing under the fabric.  He wants it _off_ but his throat won’t work enough to tell Zayn.

“M’alright,” Liam mumbles, licking around a tattoo.

“Good,” Zayn shakes out, scratching dull nails on Liam’s scalp.  “Bit hard down there, yeah?  I mean, you’re proper turned on.”

Liam tries to disguise a whimper with a cough.  He squeezes impatiently at Zayn’s hip but doesn’t reply.

His cock keeps leaking precome in his soft joggers, staining a dark grey spot right along the front.  Zayn shamelessly laughs into his ear, swirling his hips until his own half-exposed cock leaves a pretty pattern of slick all over Liam’s skin.

“S’okay,” Zayn swears with a chuckle.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Liam repeats, clearer.

Zayn bites at his throat, kisses the pinched skin afterwards.  “Right, Captain,” he sighs, “but s’cool if you’re like, I dunno, wanting a little more or summat.  Like, I’m not pressed.  But, you know – “

“Christ,” Liam groans, gripping Zayn’s chin.  He forces him into a proper angle, growling, “Just shut up, will you?”

“Oughta find a proper way to _shut me up_ , mate,” Zayn challenges, wriggling his eyebrows.

His face scrunches at the tone in Zayn’s voice but Liam knows Zayn is just taunting him.

He falls for it, willingly.

Liam gives Zayn a soft shove when he reaches for a quick kiss.  They jostle for control this time, lips rubbing intensely, tongues chasing all the sounds their wet mouths make.  Liam thinks of readjusting his cock, trying to hide the obviousness but Zayn dips down and he surges up until –

Their noses knock and Liam’s strength gets the best of him.  Zayn falls backwards, Liam moving with him.  He keeps a firm hand on Zayn’s spine while following the momentum.  They stretch out, messy and far from properly arranged, across the floor with their lips still attached.

Zayn laughs into his mouth, head cracking on the hardwood.  Liam giggles back, quiet and low, still fluttering his lips over Zayn’s.

He shifts his hips, finding another angle to press down, their cocks absently rubbing together.  Sweet, delicious friction.  The kind he gets, alone, at night when he can’t get his mind off of –

Liam sighs into Zayn’s mouth and Zayn rotates his hips slowly so Liam can feel the full length of that thick cock across his abdomen.

“Want more?” Zayn teases.

Liam shrugs because admission is the first thing he learned about interrogations.  Never do it, he was taught.

He’s three seconds from forgetting all of the rules.

His fingers pull at the flannel while his hips pin Zayn down.  They stretch awkwardly, together, pulling at clothing and Liam thinks that’s enough of an answer for Zayn.

The skin around his mouth feels raw from Zayn’s scruff but he leans in again – it’s becoming a habit, a new one – for a kiss while they tug Zayn out of the flannel.

“C’mere,” Zayn urges when Liam bundles up the shirt, tossing it.  “C’mon, man.  Just – fuck, _c’mere_.”

Liam laughs above him but Zayn grinds up and Liam goes a little blind.  He feels Zayn’s cock nudge his and it’s _just enough_.

He falls right back into Zayn, kissing and refusing to let Zayn have the control he’s trying to coax Liam into.

Liam feels one of Zayn’s hands in his hair, damp with sweat and tangling between Zayn’s fingers.  The other one squeezes between them to tug on the waistband of Liam’s joggers and –

_Wait_.

He pants against Zayn’s mouth, freezing.  He feels Zayn’s teeth biting at his lip, careful and cautious.

_Zayn is just a mission_ is supposed to be on repeat in his brain but it’s not.

He’s an outlet.  He’s a damn electrical current in Liam’s dead cells.  He’s hiding in all of Liam’s organs, pushing through his arteries until Liam lifts his hips a little and lets Zayn pull down his joggers, one-handed.

“So fit,” Zayn mumbles into his mouth.

He’s numb to the blush now, too caught on the thrill of grinding against Zayn and, occasionally, catching Zayn’s eyes rolling back.  It’s a buzzing deep in his head that keeps the adrenaline pulsing on overdrive.  The fire bites at their skin and maybe they’re too close but it doesn’t matter.

Liam sits up, gracelessly, to help wiggle out of his joggers.  He glares down at the shining light from Zayn’s chest and tries not to have a strop when the material gets caught around his ankles.

Zayn looks up at him, smirking.  He pets patient fingers right around Liam’s bare hip and waits.

“Alright?” Zayn asks.

Liam nods, fitting his puffy bottom lip between his teeth.  He tastes like Zayn.

“It’s good, right?”

“Might be,” Liam sighs, lowering his eyes.  Zayn’s cock is sitting fat, peeking from the top of the waistband now, glossy around the tip.  “For, like, the most part and all.  Haven’t really – “

Zayn’s looking at him but blindly reaching backwards.  He’s dragging his old trousers over the dirty floor, fishing through the pockets.  An eyebrow flicks up at Liam and he doesn’t realize he’s stopped talking.

The tangerine glow reflects off a small packet of lube, the gold foil of a condom.

“I don’t like, y’know, I don’t shag all of ‘em,” Zayn admits, lips still stretched into a smile that’s almost fond.  “But sometimes – “

Zayn doesn’t finish and Liam wishes he never started.  It’s just a tick of jealousy, he’ll admit it, at the thought.  Someone else’s hands all over Zayn’s body, holding him down, slicking his cock with their mouth.  Climbing into his lap, a head thrown back, hips working in unison.

Except, Liam stares at the condom and realization bundles right around all of his nerves.

He swallows, or he _tries_ to.  He can’t quite get his throat around it.  But his eyes watch Zayn palm the items with a heaving chest.  There’s no real oxygen filling his lungs but he goes through the motions.

“Hey,” comes out quietly, Zayn pushing up on his elbows.  Their noses brush in the dimness, mouths almost touching.  “Thinking it over?”

“I’m, um, well – “

“Bricking it a bit?” Zayn offers, a half-shrug from his position.  His mouth drags slowly on Liam’s.  “M’cool with a quick blowie or summat.  I’m open to, y’know, getting you off with just me hand.”

This time, Liam does swallow and his head spins.  He feels his equilibrium give and he presses his forehead to Zayn’s for balance.  A push and pulse in his brain, everything else scrambled.  His fingers reach deep into Zayn’s hair and his bare cock unconsciously skims over the cotton of Zayn’s boxers.

“I just haven’t, like,” Liam stumbles, staring down at Zayn’s mouth.  They’re so close that it’s fuzzy in his vision, even the slow slide of Zayn’s tongue.  “I mean, like, I’ve thought about it.  With a bloke, that is.  But, like, I just haven’t – “

He’s struggling and he wants to crawl under all of his hot, flushed skin.  He just wants to bury himself, live in the phobia.

His fingers tighten in Zayn’s hair until the other boy, smiles.  Zayn’s loose lips part, his words sticky-warm over Liam’s mouth when he asks, “Virgin?”

Liam coughs, chokes on a breath.  Zayn doesn’t let up, staring openly at him.  He’s still patient and Liam wants to hate him for that.  He wants Zayn to be a proper bastard and just get it over with.  Just take some relief off his cock, the one still nudging incessantly at Zayn’s hipbone.

He turns his head because the tingling along his cheeks feels unbearable but Zayn catches his chin with the same hand he’s holding the lube, the condom.  His fingers grip, painfully, forcing Liam to look back.

“S’your first time, right?” Zayn wonders.

“Does it matter?” Liam growls but it’s just a defense mechanism.  He thinks Zayn recognizes it right away.

“Depends on the partner,” Zayn offers, looking uncomfortable while still propped up on an elbow.  “It matters, a bit.  I’m not a very good teacher.”

Liam blurts a laugh.  He can’t help it.  His heart is racing in an unfamiliar pattern and his cock refuses to soften and this boy beneath him just –

He bites his lip to stop himself from kissing Zayn but Zayn meets him halfway, noses bumping, lips scratching.

“You up for it?”

He doesn’t nod, not immediately.  He gives a nonchalant shrug but his body keeps screaming _‘yes’_ loud in his ears.  He wants Zayn to push and pull this knot in his chest until he’s comfortable with it.

Just until it loosens and Liam doesn’t feel quite so out of place.

Liam rocks down over Zayn, trying to drag it out even though he could probably come now.  He could wrap a tight fist around his cock, pulling himself off and spilling across Zayn’s tight stomach muscles.  Maybe, then, he could come down from his feel of being out of orbit.

“Yeah,” he breathes because _he wants to_.  He studies Zayn’s eyes and waits –

He smiles on the inside because, shamelessly, Zayn wants it too.

“How d’you want me?” Zayn asks when Liam rolls off of him, shrugging out of his boxers.  His foot kicks them a little too close to the fire but Liam’s too distracted looking at Zayn stretched across that shabby carpet to notice.

His legs spread unabashedly, his cock sitting thick and dark on his stomach.  It curves when Liam watches him too long, twitching off Zayn’s skin, still attached somehow by a thick string of precome creating a shiny web between flesh and the slit.  All of his ink like shadows over a canvas of honey.

It’s all a diversion as Zayn slips a hand between his legs, twitching his hips up and –

_Oh_.

Liam unconsciously palms himself, carefully.  His eyes refuse to leave the way Zayn lies down on the floor, knees pulled up, fingering himself open with one finger.  Already down to the second knuckle, the pink hole swallowing him up.

“How?” Zayn asks, a little rougher.

Liam blinks at him.  His palm is slick with precome.  He chews his lip while Zayn lodges a groan in his throat, the noise so disabling.

“C’mon,” Zayn taunts.  His eyes are intense, thighs spreading to give Liam a better view.  “Talk to me, mate.”

“I don’t,” Liam stammers, pushing all of the oxygen into his lungs.  “Don’t know, man.”

Zayn nods, fitting another finger into himself.  He writhes over the carpet, his cock jumping off his skin.  His wrist twists, the angle changing, something flushing down his chest.  He keens, a whispered noise fluttering into the room.

“But you want to, like,” Zayn breathes, working his fingers in and out.  They shine under the firelight, quickly slipping back in.  “Like, you want to fuck me?”

Liam bruises his bottom lip to hollow out his response.  It’s just a mumble, something like a _‘please, it’s all I’m thinking about’_ but it rasps against the roof of his mouth.

He nods, instead.

Long, skinny fingers reappear and Liam watches Zayn squeeze more lube onto them.  He’s gasping, little harsh breaths that Liam mimics.  His legs cock wide and he finds his pink hole, stretched and clenching, slipping inside.

They whimper together and Liam’s not quite sure how to properly roll on the condom but he tries so hard.  He mucks it up for a moment, too anxious, hands shaking.  Zayn laughs breathily but not mockingly.  He’s eyeing Liam’s cock, the fits of precome spilling out, the latex stretching tightly around it when Liam gets the rubber on.

He’s got a third finger inside himself, his head cocking back for a moment.

“How do – fuck, _tell me_ Liam – “

Liam heaves in a deep breath.  He tries to remember all of the ways he imagined this – over soft sheets, someone’s perfume or musk staining the cotton, hands squeezing around thighs, hauling someone back onto his cock.

Some cheesy music like Sinatra and soft lighting and desperate kisses every time Liam glides in and out.

Not this dusty, antique cabin with half a fire going, the too loud crickets in the background, some boy with ink-stained skin and a shiny metal heart fingering himself at the thought of getting Liam off.

“We could, like,” Liam struggles, his voice giving out.

Zayn smirks at the ceiling, fingers moving slower now.  It’s almost as if he’s putting on a show, slipping them out, tracing the rim with one finger, alternately between which fingers he pushes in first.  It’s filthy, dirty – all of the things he associates with Zayn.

His ring and middle finger pulsing in and out rapidly, his forefinger scratching just behind his balls.  “Could like, I dunno,” Zayn laughs but it’s buried under a moan when his fingers go deeper, “get on me hands and knees for you.  Not such a dodgy idea.”

Liam bites at his lip out of _necessity_ rather than a habit.

He thinks, mostly, he could come like this now.  Watching Zayn get himself worked up on his fingers, dopey and fully turned on but never touching his cock.  He could peel off the condom, flick his thumb over the head, squirt off over the back of Zayn’s wrist.

Instead, he reaches out with both hands.  He grips Zayn’s hip with one, the other wedged between the bottom of Zayn’s spine and the carpet.  He eagerly jerks Zayn back up into his arms, cradling him.

He’s thought about this part enough – in the shower, gripping himself, thinking about sinking into a lad without the preamble.  It’s probably not appropriate or much like him but that doesn’t matter.

He just wants inside and Zayn’s taking too long with the teasing.

Zayn gasps against his temple, unsettled.  He giggles into Liam’s ear, whispers, “Think I’m ready?”

“Dunno,” Liam mumbles, nosing Zayn’s bare shoulder.  “Are you?”

“For most lads,” Zayn huffs, the wet drag of his slick fingers pulling out of his hole so enticing.  “But f’you?  Figured I need some proper stretching and all.”

Liam doesn’t try to hide his blush but he tucks his face into the crook of Zayn’s neck to litter Zayn’s skin with noisy kisses.

Something springs up in his chest – not the adrenaline, something a little more assaulting – that he’s unable to ignore but he centers his focus on Zayn’s smile, the quick swoop to close the distance pulling.

Liam tests a finger, purposely, around the rim of Zayn’s hole.  He likes the stretched skin, understands how this can become overwhelming.  The shine of the arc reactor in his eyes, a single finger fitting inside of Zayn.  He’s gentle even if Zayn’s jagged encouraging breaths tell him otherwise.  He takes his time and learns the way Zayn’s body trembles when he pushes back onto Liam’s finger.

“This right?” Liam asks.

Zayn blinks and nods.  He reopens the wound of his lip with his teeth, nudging onto Liam’s finger.  “Add another.”

Liam doesn’t hesitate.  He loves the cold lube on Zayn’s skin, the tight fit of muscles around his fingers.  He chases the goosebumps on Zayn’s shoulder, smoothing down the flesh with his lips.

“Twist – “

Zayn’s gasp is loud in his ears when he follows the instructions.  He pushes a little too quickly, knocking the air out of Zayn’s lungs but he recovers so quickly.  He rises and falls on Liam’s fingers like he would a –

Liam bites down on Zayn’s collarbone and reflexively teases Zayn’s hole with a third finger.

“Your cock, man,” Zayn huffs, his eyes squeezed shut but his mouth pulled into a blissful smile.  “That’s what I – s’okay, now.  You can give me your dick.”

“You sure?” Liam asks, out of instinct.

Zayn nods, popping his bottom lip from his teeth to keen.  “C’mon, I’m not like a bird or nothin’.  I’m good.  Can take it.”

“That’s rude,” Liam tells him, fingering him a little harder.  Zayn moans, his head tipping further back.  “And you’re rubbish.  I’m told it’s all about – “

“Don’t gimme shit,” Zayn giggles, squeezing fingers into the nape of Liam’s neck.  “I’m teasing.”

“You damn sure are,” Liam hisses but his smile is exposed.  It’s pressed over Zayn’s collarbone, eyes fluttering shut when Zayn strokes his scalp gently.

“But can we, like, I sort of need it,” Zayn groans, still grinding onto Liam’s fingers like he would a cock.  _Christ_.  “If we don’t, I might, like, nut off before you get in.  And I sort of _want_ – “

“You want?” Liam teases, smirking.

He’s learning a little too quickly how to be smug like Zayn.

Zayn sighs half-heartedly, wincing when Liam angles his fingers differently.  “M’good, really, Liam.  You can just – come the fuck on, babe.”

He pushes and squeezes around Liam’s fingers, breathless above him.  Hairs are falling into his eyes, all of his bruises and scratches lit by the fire.  He squirms in Liam’s lap until Liam withdraws his fingers, smearing the lube across Zayn’s hip when he holds him still.

Liam tries to lean up and kiss Zayn to distract from the way he doesn’t know how to angle his cock into Zayn.  It doesn’t work, though.  Zayn meets his mouth, grins, reaches back to line Liam up when it takes too long.  His other hand spreads himself open a little and the wet head of Liam’s cock brushes over the fluttering hole for a moment –

Zayn sinks down before Liam takes another proper breath.  His body gives into the pressure, a twinge of pain in his expression, a moment of stillness when the head slips in.  Zayn adjusts with a few deep breaths, his face pinched.  His spine arches intensely and he bows his head until their sweaty foreheads meet.

“Doing good,” Liam whispers, his eyes still wide to watch Zayn.

Zayn gasps a giggle.  “Thanks mate,” he mumbles, squeezing tightly midway around Liam’s dick.  “S’been awhile, that’s all.”

Liam hums, thumbing the sharp bone in Zayn’s hip.

Zayn rocks up to adjust.  Liam almost slips out but Zayn’s hole squeezes gently around the head before he works himself back down, taking a little more in.  It goes like that – back and forth like a brilliant tennis match – for too short of a time before Zayn is sat fully in Liam’s lap.

Liam whimpers into the hollow of Zayn’s collarbone.  He’s nudged all the way into Zayn and all of the little pants brushing the shell of his ear make him shiver.

Zayn is shameless with his moan when Liam tries to rock up.  It’s not a plea to stop – it’s a wet sob for _more_.

They gasp together, short breaths, when Zayn lifts himself up.  Zayn’s fingers squeeze at his shoulders as he tries to balance himself and he does most of the work from there.  He lifts off and gentles back down without hesitance.  He’s so slow, like he’s doing it more for Liam’s benefit than his own, but Liam doesn’t comment.

He strokes soothing fingers over Zayn’s hip and fondles fingers all up his spine while Zayn grinds down.

He never gets too far off Liam’s cock like he doesn’t want to be too far apart.  He releases breathy little noises, softer than the crickets, keeping his eyes closed.  It makes Liam dig his fingers into Zayn’s hip, his lips bumping roughly at Zayn’s chin for a kiss.

Zayn complies with a snort.  Their noses nuzzle and they stay like that – Zayn lifting up and down, Liam holding him in place.

“Faster,” Liam encourages.

Zayn groans, nodding.  He picks up his pace and Liam follows the instinct in his blood.

He fucks right back into Zayn, their sweaty thighs smacking loudly in the room.  Rough fingers in his hair, lips going rogue when Liam sharpens his technique.  He pulls Zayn back onto his cock when the cold air seeps between their bodies.  He wants Zayn close.

It’s the sort of tug of war he promised himself he’d never involve himself with.

“Oh my – _Liam_ ,” Zayn gasps, a keen trailing his words.  “You’re fucking right where I – you shouldn’t.  M’gonna come.”

Liam doesn’t listen.  He pushes back.  He holds Zayn down in his lap and humps into him in the most inconvenient way but he doesn’t think Zayn minds.

Not with his slack jaw and parted lips and fingers digging into Liam’s skin.

He can feel Zayn’s thighs shaking, the hot blurt of precome spilling from the tip of his aching cock.  The hard steel from the arc reactor rubs the hair on Liam’s chest the wrong way but he doesn’t care.

Liam just keeps dragging Zayn back down onto his cock when he tries to lift too far up.

“Don’t get too far, mate,” Liam whispers, blowing out a hot breath.  “Like it when you – “

“How about,” Zayn pauses and Liam’s unprepared for the tight clench of Zayn’s hole around the tip of his cock, “like _that_?  Better.”

He can’t answer.  Liam just nods, pressing his forehead to Zayn’s collarbone, staring down at Zayn’s twitching cock.  It’s darker, throbbing and Liam wants to touch it.  He wants to get a proper hand around it and see if Zayn ruts more into his palm or fucks back onto Liam’s cock.

“So tight,” he mutters into Zayn’s sweaty skin.  “Like – is it always so – “

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn gasps.  He clenches around Liam again.  “For like, lads I mean.  Mostly.  For me, I hope.”

Liam doesn’t want to tell Zayn that sounds _ridiculous_ – or that he’d like to test it out, after a shower, just to see if Zayn is looser or still like a vice around Liam’s dick.

He’s tempted, though.  Very much so.

Zayn speeds up above him and Liam leans back on one hand, his auxiliary one fitting between them to finally wrap around Zayn’s cock.  He’s too close, the sensation climbing up his belly, digging into his chest.  He sucks in a sharp breath and Zayn’s head snaps back when Liam’s thumb catches on the head.

“Fuck you,” Zayn snickers, out of breath.  “Or, like, _fuck me_.  Please, babe, just fuck me.”

Liam complies but it’s a struggle.  He’s unpracticed.  He can’t quite coordinate wanking Zayn off, thrusting into him, keeping himself propped up.  It’s a messy try but he manages to hammer up into Zayn while loosely holding Zayn’s dick around the middle, repositioning his strength.

“Just _don’t_ – oh babe,” Zayn hiccups, “Keep going.  Just keep going.”

It sounds the way the white noise of the telly in the middle of the night does.  He can’t switch it off, the way he wants to bring Zayn off but can’t hold himself together.

Liam winces, the struggle too much.  His cock fattens up inside of Zayn and the calm, breathless whimper Zayn gives out when Liam twists his wrist unsettles all of the little gears he had still keeping him ticking.

He shoves up into Zayn, leaning in.  His lips accidentally kiss over the cold steel, metallic taste on his tongue as he spurts into the condom.  He ruts weakly upward, _floating_ – it feels like he’s floating.

Zayn stills above him, that small indication in the way his pupils are blown like balloons and his teeth gnaw down on his ruddy lip before he comes.  It slicks all over Liam’s stomach, into his palm while he keeps pulling Zayn off.

He’s still too dizzy from his own orgasm that he barely notices the wounded noises Zayn gives out when his cock goes soft, sensitive in Liam’s hand.  An aching giggle in his ear clears the fog and he drops his hand away.  He falls back on the cold hardwood while Zayn hovers over him, hands flat on either side of Liam’s head.

The room is drenched in their musky scents, just that hint of sweat and come and tangy boyish glow.  He stretches out, the ground too uncomfortable for his spine while Zayn looks down at him.

Zayn licks away the blood from his lip.  “Was that a mistake?” he asks when his lungs fill with fresh air.

Liam feels numb – but, then, _so alive_.  A new flood around his bones.  It’s like heavy feet walking through the thick snow.  Like the spark before a light bulb is blown.

That little warning in the back of his head is loud in his ears because – _Zayn is just a mission_ , remember?  A direct order.  He’s not meant to be thought of this way.

“Not sure,” he admits, a haphazard shrug following.  “Do we have to think about it?”

Zayn gives a shrug back, blinking down at the way the bluish glow from his chest runs over Liam’s sweaty skin, making it look silver and grey.

Nothing like charcoal.

“We could just – I dunno,” Zayn starts, scratching his lip with his teeth again.  “I don’t, like, usually but we could go to bed?”

“Bed?”

Zayn swallows a breath like he does smoke – casual, careless, slow – before he gives a nod.  “Like, I mean,” he jerks his head towards the bedroom, so far away now, “together?”

He doesn’t think about it.  He knows he should.  He needs to remind himself those small bits – he’s a soldier, Zayn’s a mission, _protect him_ – but it’s too heavy and just Zayn’s weight over him is enough.

“Seems fair,” he replies and Zayn’s slow nod afterwards fills in the spaces.

It’s still too empty in this cabin though.

 

++

 

He’s been watching the wall for an hour.  His eyes never adjust to all of the shadows, the Polaroid view of the moon through the thick curtains.  He feels cold, even with a body pressed to his own, and this acidic taste of _regret_ lays permanent on his tongue.

He _shouldn’t_ have.  It’s all he keeps thinking.

And maybe it’s because he spent the first fifteen minutes in this bed staring at the spine of someone else.  At the back of his head rather than his face.  How easily, after something so intimate, they fell back into their roles because –

It was just about getting each other off, right?  It’s how it always is, in this world.  A selfish act disguised as a mutual agreement.

It’s in this moment, in the dark of this still cabin, Liam considers how much he actually might _hate_ Zayn Malik.

Right here, like the tip of a flame in his chest and a churning down in his stomach, Liam thinks about it.

With this boy unconscious in his arms, on a lumpy bed with wrinkled sheets and a heavy afghan thrown over their exhausted bodies.  The pale bluish light from the center of Zayn’s chest sets a soft glow over his sharp cheekbones and creates a fuzziness across his eyelids.  Half of his fringe falls heavy over his forehead, a scratch with dried blood – still fresh, even if it’s been enough time to heal – along the middle of his bottom lip and a jagged cut on his temple.

He’s got just enough stubble along his jaw to prickle beneath Liam’s fingertips when they brush at a bruise.  Liam’s arm, the one trapped beneath Zayn’s lithe weight with his head in the crook of Liam’s elbow, feels sharp and heavy.  Too much pressure, he thinks, but he can’t tug it from beneath Zayn.

He’ll wake up.

And then, Liam will realize more vehemently, how much he truly hates this boy with a usually cocky grin and a deliberate tongue always licking his pink lips.

Because Zayn Malik is a bit of an arrogant asshole, even if Liam hates using words like that.

But the cabin is quiet, aside from a dying fire and the hazy sounds outside.  All Liam can hear is Zayn’s soft, ragged breathing and he can still smell Zayn’s expensive cologne, the cigarette smoke on his skin, the tart alcohol he likes –

Underneath that, the soft soap he uses, the waxy hair product, the cherry floating in that last drink from the club.

He flinches when Zayn’s breathing catches in his chest.  Liam narrows his eyes at him and thinks, for the _tenth_ time, he shouldn’t have bothered to save Zayn’s life.

Liam is a soldier.  He’s everything Zayn Malik has never been; will never be.  He knows what _courage_ means and it’s not flaunting money to a million _‘yes men’_ or posing for a dozen magazines to prove a point.

And maybe that’s why Liam hates Zayn – because Zayn got to live the life Liam never did.

Or, possibly, it’s because Zayn and Liam are just like this – fighting for a freedom from life but never quite winning the battle.

He’s not sure and his head _throbs_ from thinking about it.  So Liam stares at the wall and feels Zayn shift on the bed, mumbling into Liam’s forearm as he scoots closer.  He presses his tight spine into Liam’s chest, sighing contently.

Liam doesn’t shove him away, even if the thought crosses his mind a dozen times.  He buries his nose in Zayn’s hair, takes a sharp inhale of his scent, and tries to hate him quietly in the dark.

He tries to sleep through the regret.

 

++

 

He doesn’t mind the stiff, bitter morning air much.  That cold breath along the nape of his neck or the way it coils around all of his muscles while the sun is still a tiny solar flare so far away.

Liam likes the frost that still sticks to the needles of the trees, the afterglow of a quiet night.  Dew caught like little crystals on the muddy, stomped down grass.  He swings an axe mercilessly into a block of wood, slicing it clean in half.

He enjoys the way that’s the only sound filling his ears for a dozen or so meters.

There’s a mound of chopped wood already gathered by the small stump in front of him but he doesn’t quit.  It’s the only thing keeping his mind soothed in the aftermath.

In _Zayn_ –

Liam sighs, dragging the back of his wrist across his forehead to swipe away the cold sweat.  His mind has been spinning like being out of control during terminal velocity.  Free falling.  This constant whir since a few breaths after that raw hour when the sun was rising and turning the sky a blush pink.

He remembers that wiry body, stretched all out over the sheets, an arm thrown over his eyes, messy hair on Liam’s pillow when he blinked his eyes opened.  Zayn’s smell on his skin, his own arm tossed over Zayn’ chest under the arc reactor.  His other arm trapped under Zayn’s neck, pins and needles stinging his muscles from the loss of blood flow.

Liam can’t stop thinking of the way he blinked at Zayn for minutes.  His soft skin and jaw muddled with stubble.  His breathing quiet and even.  The way a small brush of Liam’s cold nose made Zayn shiver and half roll away, blindly reaching back to grab Liam’s hip, dragging Liam through the momentum.

He wanted to pull away and bleach the last few hours from his mind.

Instead, he batted Zayn’s hand away and just watched.

For seconds.  For minutes.  Until he didn’t know if he was breathing more than he was actually staring at Zayn.  He hates the way their next few breaths synchronized and how he studied the line of Zayn’s spine until his fingers went numb.

Liam sets up another log on the stump.  Another swing, another breath, another something broken in half.  All of it feels so familiar.

He brushes the cold tips of his calloused fingers over his mouth, eyes flicking shut.  His nose scrunches and all his mind can remember is a warm body trying to snuggle closer between twisted sheets.  His lips brushing a curious, soft kiss to the corner of Zayn’s mouth before he crawled out of bed.

Before he ran away with bare feet and twined nerves from that sinking feeling in his gut.

Liam blinks his eyes open.  He sucks in long breaths of chilled air, stinging his lungs and shocking his system.  Bars of thick gold light crack through tree limbs, saturating the ground with baited warmth.  Everywhere is green and brown and gold.

Leaves fall around him, spinning and spinning, little flames because it’s late autumn.

Tiny fires like the one gathered a few yards from them last night while he burrowed deep into Zayn, listened to wet gasps in his ear, left small bruises over Zayn’s skin because he didn’t want him to get away.

He hasn’t thought of someone like this – ever.  Not even seven decades ago, his tongue heavy with a promise for a dance.

Liam hates not keeping his promises.

His brow lifts, ears pink from the cold but lifting at the sound of snapping twigs.  It’s light, in the distance, but he hears it and his fingers automatically twitch for his shield.  A few yards away, close enough for a quick reaction.

Adrenaline shifting, a hot spike in his blood.  His fingers curl around the handle of the axe and he slows his breathing, reflexes immediately awakened.

He spins on his heels towards the noise, axe drawn back.  There’s a gun pointed at his face.  It’s the barrel of a familiar Glock 26 and Louis is standing on the other side of it, smirking.

“Hiding out much, Payno?”

Liam feels stiff breaths in his chest and it takes forever for his heart to slow down.  It takes a million seconds too long for him to come back down.

Louis eventually lowers his gun, holstering it in the small gap between his skin and jeans.  Liam turns from him, a loose grip around the handle of the axe now.  The cold finally bites at the skin of his exposed arms, his t-shirt loose and he doesn’t need a coat.

He survived Germany.  This is nothing like that winter.

“Trying to keep Malik alive,” Liam replies.  His tongue feels numb, his mouth dry like cotton.

He can see Louis smiling in a corner of his vision.  He’s still quite the bastard.

“Didn’t know you cared that much,” Louis remarks.  Leaves crunch sharply under his boots.  He kicks the spare wood out of the way, crouching down onto a stump.

“I don’t,” Liam argues, lowering his eyes.

It tastes like a lie – sour, hard to swallow.  He drops the axe near his feet, rubbing the heel of his hand over his eyes until he sees a fireworks display of solar oranges and sickening greens.  He bites over his bottom lip, muttering, “He’s a mission.  An assignment.  An – “

“Order?” Louis supplies.

Liam shrugs carelessly.  He doesn’t nod or give into the way Louis’ smile ticks a little higher.  He thinks Louis is just teasing but he’s not sure.  He hasn’t been certain of anything for forty-eight hours.

Or seventy years.

He gathers chunks of wood into his arms, sniffing at the sweet inhale of pine around him.  Dead leaves rustle at his feet, the sun stroking through the limbs.

“You went radio silence on us, mate,” Louis comments, brushing stray fringe behind his ear.

“I had to,” Liam scoffs.  “I had to keep him safe.  _Alive_.”

He can see Louis nodding, hands on his knees.  His jaw tightens just before Louis says, “We thought they got you.”

It comes out like a sigh but Liam keeps his back to Louis.  He manipulates his face into something less strained.  He tries not to think of Zayn pressed to the cold floor of a club, buried under an unconscious body, struggling to crawl away.  Bloody and wrecked.

“There’s a leak at SHIELD,” Louis mentions, tilting his face up into the halo of sun.  He’s casual about it, the sun making the blue in his eyes lighter.  “Someone planted that info that we were there, not just Malik.  There were too many of ‘em.  They wouldn’t have brought in Lloyd otherwise.”

“Friend of yours?” Liam asks, half-twisting to look at Louis.

Louis looks off into the woods.  His mouth slides sideways while he leans back on his hands.

“We grew up in the KGB together.  I was a wee bit older but still,” Louis sighs.  His nostrils flare, the only tell in his arsenal.  His face is blank otherwise.  “Had the same handler.  She’s tough.  Thoughtless.  The others thought I was the perfect plant but she’s ruthless.  Brilliant sort of assassin, me thinks.”

Liam drops the bundle of wood closer to the cabin.  He stretches, little pockets of muscles shifting under his skin.

“Is Styles alright?” he wonders, brushing half of his words into the crook of his elbow.

“He’s fine,” Louis replies, quickly.  He raises an eyebrow at Liam, tilting his head to add, “Unlike you.  What’s the story Cap?”

Liam doesn’t answer.  The sun burns through his eyelashes and his body twists to throw a quick look towards the cabin.  All of those empty spaces waiting to be filled.

“What do they want with him?” he asks.  He’s turning on his heels to glare at Louis.  His fingers tighten into fists at his side.  “Why is SHIELD so invested in Zayn?”

“Zayn?” Louis asks, tipping forward, lips quirked up into a curious grin.

Liam scrunches his face.  “Shove it, Widow,” he grunts, stalking away from the cabin.  He lowers his voice, the feeling deep in his chest.  “Why him?  Why not feed information out of Winston?  Track down someone on the inside, maybe?”

“They don’t trust anyone else,” Louis says with a mild shrug.

“Since when did SHIELD get to judge honesty?” Liam grumbles.

Louis puckers his lips, trying to give off a thoughtful look.  “I’m not quite certain what you’re implying, mate.”

“Yes, you do,” Liam snaps.  His knuckles go white from the tension.  “There’s dishonesty all over that place.  So why Zayn?  What’s his life worth?”

Louis curls forward some with his elbows on his knees.  He squints at Liam, examining the flex of Liam’s shoulders under his shirt.

“What’s it to you, Payne?” he inquires, jerking his head up.  His lips curl, just slightly, as he asks, “You’ve gone soft on him?”

It sounds more like an accusation.  It’s cold and calculated and the way Liam has seen Louis interact with prisoners during an interrogation.

He’s brilliant at things like that – _lethal_.

“I haven’t,” Liam hisses, refusing to look Louis in the eye.  He glares at the tree behind him instead.  “He’s a mission.”

There’s not a moment for Louis to reply.  His words curl in his throat and he holds onto them when they hear soft feet on the porch.

“Li?”

It’s like a swallow of vicious medicine.  It slides slowly like thick honey down his throat.  He chokes silently for a breath, dragging his rough fingers down the nape of his neck while looking at Zayn.

He’s stood in the doorway of the cabin, leaning on the frame.  He looks sleepy and so _soft_.  It’s nothing like the Zayn he fights with, the cocky billionaire with too much mouth.  He looks like the moon last night – full and fuzzy.  Just a little distant, which causes Liam’s fingers to tingle, go a bit numb.

Zayn is rubbing at his eyes with Liam’s loose flannel half-buttoned, a new pair of Liam’s boxers hanging off his narrow hips.

Louis smirks, snorts to the side of him.  Liam inhales a deep breath, a scowl already forming over his brow.

“Good to see you’ve been keeping _undercover_ , Malik,” Louis teases, lips curled up.

Zayn lifts his brow, blinking the haze from his eyes.

“What – “

Louis swiftly waves Zayn off, chuckling under his breath.  It takes him seconds to turn serious, another talent Louis has in his arsenal.  He’s almost unrecognizable with his hard eyes, tight mouth.

“There was an attack in France.  A missile took out half a city block,” he says, eyebrows coming together.  He looks over to Zayn, lips pouting.  “It was a Malik Industries missile.”

It’s almost immediate – the shock.  Zayn goes pale, slumping in the doorframe.  His tongue, pink and slick, licks over his chapped lips before his head drops.  There’s half an inch of regret in his expression, the rest blank.

Like he doesn’t understand how to care or be mournful.

Liam tightens his fists, squeezing the blood out of his hands.  He thinks to grab the axe, hurl it at _something_.  At anything.

“Get dressed,” he hisses, not bothering to look at Zayn.  There’s a dismissive scoff in his next breath when Zayn squeaks.  “We need to get you back to SHIELD.  Get you safe.”

Zayn’s worried brow appears in his vision but he ignores it.  He barely listens when Zayn says, “But I thought – “

“Just do it Malik.”

It’s cold, harsher than the chill in the breeze around them.  Liam looks up then.  He watches the soft, wounded look on Zayn’s face.  He watches it fall away so quickly when their eyes meet.  He can’t take his view away from the tight knit of Zayn’s brow, the hardness around those eyes.  Sweat pools around his collarbones while he glares at Zayn when he swallows.

He watches Zayn slide so naturally back into his armor.

It makes him sick to his stomach but he doesn’t let it show.  He learned that from Louis.

“Fine,” Zayn snaps, pushing off the doorway.  “Let’s fucking get to it.”

“It’s just to keep you – “

Zayn stomps off before he can finish.  He’s somewhere in the dark of the cabin, too far away to hear Liam whisper, “ _safe_.”

He’s thankful Louis doesn’t say anything, hopping off the stump and crashing into the leaves, out of sight when Liam finally unclenches his hands.

There’s bruises along his palms for minutes afterwards and he barely notices when the blood starts to flow from his heart back into his hands.

Half of him is already dead, anyway.

 

++

 

Louis piles them into some sleek, posh black car that’s too noticeable in this crummy little town.  He speeds down the streets to the freeway, old Beethoven on the radio, Zayn and Liam shoved into the backseat with what feels like a thousand kilometers between them.

Zayn falls asleep against the cold window, pressed to the door.

Liam carefully watches him.

The squares of sunlight run fuzzily over his sharp cheekbone.  He can see the cut along Zayn’s temple.  His hair is drawn back, still damp from a shower, lips chapped again.  The stubble is thicker, dark shadows along his jaw to match the ones his long eyelashes make at the top of his cheeks.

He’s shrugged into an old jumper from Liam’s childhood, the fit straining all over his shoulders and arms.  It hides the blue of the arc reactor and Liam, for a half a second, misses the shine in his eyes.  The glow stinging his retinas when Zayn was in his lap, grinding away.

Liam swallows, barely.  His chest puffs out before he exhales, giving in.  A hand sneaks over the leather seats, bumps into Zayn’s.  Liam tightens his mouth to stop the frown before he threads their fingers together.

It feels so wrong but still –

Liam stares straightforward, ignoring the look Louis shoots him in the rearview.

He just wants to keep Zayn safe.  That’s it.

But there’s a relief in his blood when Zayn doesn’t tug away when he shuffles around to readjust himself in the seat.  He lets Liam hold on, eyelashes fluttering on his cheeks like he’s half-awake.

Liam thinks, between cities, Zayn squeezes his hand back.

 

++


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s in this moment, in the dark of this still cabin, Liam considers how much he actually might_ hate _Zayn Malik._

 

 

++

 

Liam moves quietly down the pale white corridors of SHIELD.  He sticks close to the walls, trying not to be noticed even though – well, the uniform is always so noticeable.  The blues and reds and the shield propped along his spine.  He used to think, daftly, it was his jawline or maybe those crinkles around his eyes when he’s not even trying to smile or the wide set of his shoulders that made him transparent to everyone.  But it’s not.

It’s always the uniform, the shield, the _Captain Britain_ stitched in invisible ink all over him.

He drags his knuckles on the cold wall, turning down a hallway with his head lowered.  He pretends this is just an aimless walk but it’s not.

Liam knows exactly where he’s going.

He tries to look like he’s mucking about, slipping into the doorway of one of the labs.  He’s casual and careless at the same time, fingers scratching over his scalp, sliding down to the back of his neck.  A thumb rubbing the tension out of the top of his spine.

A corner of his mouth twitches and he hopes no one is close enough to see the half-smile slowly tugging at his lips.

“Capt’n!”

Niall’s accent is immediate, deafening.  His wild blue eyes distract from the pizza sauce at the corner of his mouth or the bed hair he refuses to tame.  His lab coat is too big and his jeans too skinny with the holes in the knees showing off a jagged scar but he’s completely, shamelessly _Niall_.

It makes it so easy for Liam’s smile to widen.

Niall stumbles up to him, patting Liam’s shoulder instantly.  Like an old friend.  Like a mate from primary school.

This warm feeling spreads down Liam’s arms and he almost forgets that –

“Horan,” he says, low with a small nod.

Niall beams, cheeks naturally flushed and red.  “Good t’see you out and about.  Gave us a good fright there.”

Liam nods again, pulling in a deep breath.  It’s all he’s heard for hours – he didn’t know he was that _valued_.  That feels like the right word but it’s probably not.  He’s a _weapon_ for SHIELD disguised as a symbol of hope.

It makes his blood cold.

He catches himself leaning just a little, peeking past Niall.  In a corner of the lab, the white walls making him stand out – Zayn.  He doesn’t stare long because he knows better.  Because he doesn’t want to.

They haven’t spoken in hours and that’s how it should be.

Zayn is nothing but a –

Niall clears his throat softly, a knowing grin on his lips that Liam tries not to look flustered over.  He leans into the doorjamb, glancing over all of the laptops and stacks of paperwork, thick textbooks piled messily over one desk.

“Been busy?” Liam wonders.

Niall snorts, his cheeks flushing redder.  “Just a wee bit.  Y’know us science blokes – can’t quite stay outta the lab, right?”

“You need a hobby, mate,” Liam teases, tossing a weak punch to Niall’s shoulder.

Niall flinches, trying to shake off the sting.  Liam forgets his strength, pressing a weak smile over his lips like an apology for Niall.

“I need a _date_ ,” Niall sighs, ruffling his already fluffy blonde hair.  “Been asking Styles to hook me up with Agent Calder but I’m not quite good at chatting anyone up.  The idea makes me feel daft, like, I get sick to me stomach and I haf’ta walk away.”

Liam grins behind his hand at the embarrassingly deflated look Niall shoots him.

“Maybe that pretty bird down in t’cafeteria.  Redhead?”

“Jesy,” Liam says with a low laugh.  “Doesn’t seem like your type.”

Niall groans, his eyes crinkling up with a long laugh.  “M’dating my laptop and formulas, Cap.  I don’t actually have a type.  Just need somet’ing nice to stick my dick in.”

Liam feels a gasp hollow out his chest, wide eyes and a huge smile when Niall clamps both hands over his mouth.

Niall is anything but crude, not like Louis.  He’s sweet, goofy, a little dramatic, quite brilliant – Liam was always rubbish at maths but he’s certain Niall is the most clever lad he’s met, other than Zayn – and he’s almost like a bumbling sailor when he first stumbles off the harbor.  He’s a bit drunk on _everything_.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Liam pats his shoulder and pretends it never happened.  For Niall’s sake, of course.

He motions towards all of the stuff cluttering the room, bypassing Zayn because –

The lump in his throat goes down a little easier when Niall’s eyes brighten up.  “What’ve you been working on here?” he asks, crossing his arms.

Liam listens to Niall prattle on about his new experiments, his tests with gamma rays.  He smiles through it all, sneakily taking glances past Niall’s shoulder at the fuzzy outline of Zayn.  Nothing long or determined, just – small looks.

He’s not some desperate schoolboy pining over a dumb crush or for that longing look to be returned.

Especially not from Zayn Malik.

Liam bites down on his lip while Niall goes on about his radiation studies.  He blinks the image of Zayn from his vision and lowers his chin, shaking his head at Niall’s ecstatic hands while he speaks.

“We think,” Niall continues, grinning like a complete fool, “we might be able to replicate your Super Soldier serum now.  All of our research, man – it’s wicked.  By using the gamma radiation and shit.  Like, I’m proper stoked.”

Niall leans in, laughing, “Just t’ink, Capt’n.  A bunch of massively fit lads like y’self protecting all of the world.  It’ll be sick.”

Liam feels his cheeks flush with a hot heat, the kind that spills off an open fire when the wind sweeps through.  Tiny little embers under his skin when Niall draws back, reaching up on his tiptoes to ruffle Liam’s hair.

He shrugs back, smirking.  “Sounds brilliant, doc.”

Niall nods gleefully, rubbing at his own cheek.  “All of Malik’s help has been amazing,” he says, jerking his head towards Zayn.  “A real knowledgeable bloke, he is.  A bit overconfident but he’s loads of help.”

Liam’s lips smear out a grin, a jerky head movement that’s meant to be a nod but his eyes drift past Niall, again, as he takes a deep breath in –

Niall fuzzes into his field of vision before he can get a proper look.  He’s gnawing at his already red bottom lip with raised eyebrows.  “You should,” Niall pauses, looking shifty and nervous.  He looks around, properly anxious with a hand reaching up to tangle in his hair as he sighs, “Fuck man, you should, like, ‘ave a chat with ‘im.”

“ _Niall_ – “

Niall quickly shakes his head, jostling from foot to foot.  His scuffed Converses squeak over the floor, lips trying to curl up into a pleading smile.

“Just, like – Christ, man, hear me out,” he says a little wildly, his voice dropping to a hiss so Zayn doesn’t hear.  “He’s a decent lad.  Self-centered, yeah, but for a good reason.  ‘Sides being, well, fucking ace in the looks department.”

Liam presses his lips into a tight line, trying to look patient with his wrinkled brow, stiff jaw.

“I mean,” Niall clears his throat, stands a little taller but still not at Liam’s height, “It’s a sad story, innit?  He lost his mum.  His dad was killed.  The kid’s got an awful rep but how’m I s’pposed to judge ‘im for it?”

He sniffs at Niall, feels the way the muscles in his arm coil and retract to stop himself from straining for another look.  Just a quick one.  Just a –

He really is a bloody stupid bloke, he knows it.

There’s a cautious, fond smile on Niall’s lips when their eyes catch.  His eyes are like a clear sky above the Thames – true blue.

Niall snorts, cocking his head sideways.  “He keeps looking at my trading cards of ye, mate.”

Liam sweeps his lungs with a deep, clear breath.  He leans further into the lab, a flush to his cheeks, eyes narrowed for a good look.  His heart speeds up – that terminal velocity feeling taking over – and his head tilts back, his spine pressed to the metal of the door.

Zayn has soft, flat hair, thick black fringe falling across his eyebrows.  Rimmed glasses sit on his nose, most of his stubble shaven away to show off his jaw.  He looks like he’s been rummaging through Niall’s cupboards for clothes – a silly cartoonish t-shirt on, ripped jeans.  His spine is bowed and he’s hunched over a laptop while balancing a carton of Thai food on one thigh, stealing saucy noodles from the box with a pair of chopsticks.

There’s a tattered copy of _the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ sat next to his knee, opened to the page Liam thinks Zayn left off on.

Back at the cabin.  Their empty spaces filled with _something_ now.

Zayn glances up, a pink tongue pulling a spare vegetable from his chopsticks.  Pieces of his hair catch in his eyelashes and a half-crooked smile, smudged with extra sauce and his tongue pressing against the back of white teeth, smears over his lips when he finds Liam.

An easy grin almost slides across Liam’s mouth at the sight of him.  He holds it back, swallows it down, shoves it into his chest.

He’s meant to keep him safe, that’s all.

Liam slowly backs out of the lab, walking backwards while patting Niall heartily on the shoulder.  “Watch over him, okay?”

It falls off his lips like a question but he intends for to sound more like a request.  An order.  More like a mission.

“But – “

Liam spins on his heels, spares himself that last look at Zayn that he doesn’t want.  At least, he tells himself repeatedly that.

“Thanks doc,” he says with a forced smile, waving blindly at Niall and ignoring all of his sputtering.

He stumbles down the hallways, staying close to the wall, slowing his breathing.  There’s a thin film of sweat across his brow, his hands shaking by his side and he thinks it’s the fastest he’s ever made it to the lifts.

It’s a shame, he thinks amusedly, the initial drop inside of the elevator doesn’t seem to make his heart climb back up into his chest.

 

++

 

He hasn’t slept for a whole night in three days.

Actually, he hasn’t slept a full night since that first breath out of the ice but still.

He’s spent more time watching the bluish glow from the television smudging all the shadows of the walls, listening to late London traffic, counting all of the fuzzy dots behind his eyelids, waiting for his eyes to become too heavy to keep open.

It never comes.  But he waits.

He’s spent three whole days away from SHIELD, ignoring twenty missed calls from Agent Calder and a mountain of messages from Niall and sometimes, he thinks, he can see Louis sitting somewhere outside of his flat.  Watching.  Looking through those specialized lenses and keeping tabs on Liam’s every morning run.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, a collection of shattered thoughts in his head.  They rattle around every time he lays his head against a too soft pillow but he never goes to sleep.

Liam drags his feet as he moves through the corridors towards Higgins’ office.  He’s not hesitant – well, a little bit – but there’s this anxious feeling from the balls of his feet all the way through the properly trimmed hair on his head.  Still half a mohawk, still buzzed on the sides, still long enough to drag his fingers through right now.

Something shifts wrong in his veins when his eyes catch Tomlinson rounding the corner from the office, his body stitched into that black uniform with the red Widow imprint on the belt.

Louis’ lips twitch a little, dragging up into an almost solemn grin.

“Captain,” he says, passing, trying to smirk like they haven’t been ignoring each other for days.

“Widow,” Liam replies, keeping his eyes forward.

He doesn’t wonder long enough if Louis’ lips tilt downward or if he shoots Liam a middle finger for being so emotionless.

Instead, he marches down the hallway, shield strapped to his back, uniform pulling around his muscles, his chin tipped a little higher.

“Captain Britain,” Higgins smirks from behind his desk, stretched back in his leather chair, “Just the bloke I needed to see.”

Eleanor is stood behind him, holding a pile of files close to her chest.  Her uniform peels comfortably around her small frame, gun at her hip, something soft in her face.  She blinks down at Higgins for a moment before offering him a wide smile for a greeting.

Liam nods at her, eyebrows lifting high until his forehead produces wrinkles like messy linen.

“Captain,” she grins.

“Agent Cal – _Eleanor_.  Eleanor, I mean,” he stammers, sucking in a quick breath.

She holds up a few files to hide her giggle but he can still see the spill of pink over her cheeks behind the folders.

Higgins gives them both a quick look, poking up his own eyebrow before leaning forward over his desk.  “Congrats lad – on saving Malik, of course,” he hums, folding his fingers together.  There’s a thoughtful hunch to his shoulders.  “You three did some p’rty hefty damage to the club.  Massive wreckage.”

Liam leans back on the balls of his feet, boots digging into the floor.  He tries not to tut at the disapproving look Higgins aims at him.

“I’m sure SHIELD and Malik Industries wouldn’t be too bothered to foot the bill,” he remarks.  He adds a thoughtless shrug for emphasis, staring off into the glass window behind Higgins.

“Right,” Higgins smiles, leaning back until the chair squeaks.  “Agent Tomlinson was just informing us how well you took care of Malik.”

“Did my job, sir,” Liam quickly replies.

“You kept him alive,” Higgins adds, all of the wrinkles in his face stretching when he draws up his brow.

“It was an order,” Liam counters, swallowing a sigh.  He straightens the discomfort in his face before whispering, “He’s my mission.”

“Correct,” Higgins says, slowly, studying Liam.  He wants to find all of the gaps in Liam’s armor –

Liam thinks he’ll be searching for a long time.

“We’ve been chatting,” Higgins says while reaching an open palm out to Eleanor.  She drops a file into it, looking small when Liam’s eyes drag over her.  “Calder and I think it’d be a perfect opportunity to revisit the Avengers Initiative.  Maybe ye’ll reconsider now?”

He almost flinches, fingers busying themselves by tracing the seams of his uniform instead of showing his hesitance.  It feels tighter, like all of his muscles are trying to crawl out of it now.  This uniform stitched from SHIELD materials – like they _own him_.

“Captain,” Higgins sighs, pushing the file towards Liam.

Liam keeps his hands by his side, his jaw drawn tight and uncomfortable.

“Things are bad,” he continues, fingers flicking the folder further up his desk towards Liam, “They’re far worse than we’ve thought.”

“It’s bigger than SHIELD,” Eleanor speaks up.  All of her soft features turn worried, uneven.  “Bigger than us, Liam.”

Higgins sniffs, tapping his fingers on the glass.  “There’s millions of lives at risk here, Payne,” he adds, the clam in his voice turning intense.  “We need an asset.  Something to protect the people.”

Liam finally grabs the thick file, thumbing through a few pages.  He recognizes most of the faces, the names, but the information is new.  The grainy surveillance footage.  Their lives typed out neatly without the blood attached.

“Studies have shown that this combination would be quite effective, offensively and defensively, Captain,” Eleanor says.  She squeezes the other files tighter to her chest.

“This a footy match or something?” Liam teases but his lips refuse to lift into a smile.

They blink at each other, Eleanor and him, both chewing their bottom lips.

Higgins clears his throat, chin on his knuckles.  “We think Malik and Horan – “

Liam’s eyes go wide before he can finish, his tongue numb when he snaps, “No.”

There’s an instant scowl on Higgins’ face, one tarnished by a flick of the grey sky outside.  “With all due respect, Captain, I – “

“With all due respect, sir,” Liam interrupts with squinted eyes, a tightness to his lips, “they’re nothing but civilians.”

The chair groans loudly when Higgins shifts again.  His elbows are on the glass table now, Eleanor stepping back some.  He wrinkles his nose and Liam’s prepared for this.  He’s ready to be scolded for arguing with a commanding officer except –

This isn’t Germany and the lives of his mates aren’t ready to run blood red in his memory.

Because no one here deserves the title of friend, nor enemy.

They’re just – well, faces in the crowd.

“Dr. Horan has been working on some bloody brilliant stuff lately,” Higgins explains, something calm wrapping around his words.  “His experiments with gamma radiation ‘ave been proving to be quite fantastic.  We think he’s onto something.”

“He’s a – he’s just _Niall_ , sir,” Liam argues.  There’s a tremor in his voice that sounds half like a plea.

Higgins ignores it, shaking his head.

“Studies show – “

Higgins waves Eleanor’s words off, rolling his shoulders.  “He gets it, Calder,” he grins, inclining forward.  “And I’ve told you not to doubt Malik.  He’s working on some things.”

“He’s arrogant.  Cocky,” Liam huffs, squeezing the file too hard.  It wrinkles between his fingers but he doesn’t care.  “He’s too sure of himself.”

“True,” Higgins smiles.  “Very true.”

Liam shakes his head at him.  He’s trying to placate Liam and he doesn’t need that.  He needs to feel as if he’s not back in the field, piled beneath the wreckage, freezing in the ice.

“He’ll be a ticking time bomb out there,” Liam hisses.  “A team doesn’t need that.”

“We think they’ll be quite valuable,” Higgins shrugs, unaffected by the way Liam’s face flushes a deep red.  “Plus Dr. Horan has been workin’ on, well, we’ll just say some _‘magical’_ additions for the team.”

There’s an anger roaring through his blood.  He fists the file at his side, his chest heaving.  His heart is like a nuclear reactor, waiting to crack.

“What will Horan and _Zayn_ – “

Higgins draws up a quick brow and Liam feels caught.  His lungs reject his next breath and he feels lightheaded.  He hears a ringing in his ears and the blush hot on his cheeks.  Hot on the word that just left his mouth.

“What could they possibly do in the field?” Liam asks swiftly, his head fogging up when he tries to swallow.  In, out, focus.  “They’re not properly trained.  They’ll be killed.”

Higgins leans back in the chair.  He crosses his legs at the knees, humming.  His mouth quirks but he doesn’t say anything.  His fingers twist around each other and that concentrated silence is louder than Liam can handle.

“Is that what you want?  More blood on SHIELD’s hands?”  The rage keeps ticking, faster and faster, getting too loud in his head.  “I thought you wanted Malik alive?  He _can’t_ –“

Eleanor clears her throat loudly.  She gives Liam a small headshake, a warning.

Higgins grins, spinning his chair to face the window.  Liam can still see his reflection.  There’s a crack of a smile but something layered in his small eyes.

He’s not quite won but it’s enough to keep Higgins satisfied.

“Sometimes even the weakest of armies survive ‘cause of their leader,” he offers from his chair.  He tips his head back.  “I think I learned that from you, Captain Britain.”

Liam’s fingers curl into the file, bunching it, the papers cutting into his palm.  His free hand wipes at his mouth and he glares at Higgins’ reflection against the silver sky outside.

He bites his tongue and walks off before he forgets his purpose here.

 

++

 

Liam has been staring at the files for hours.  Cornered off in some unused office at SHIELD, breathing a little too loudly.  He keeps the blinds open on the big window next to him, all of that grey sky casting shadows over the room.  His calloused fingers turning the pages, over and over.  A cardboard cup of cold coffee next to his hand, a spare hand brushing knuckles over his temple.  A sour taste on his tongue from the words he didn’t holler at Higgins.

A bunch of papers about this team.  This Avengers Initiative.  This group of misfits Director Higgins expects _him_ to lead.

Two assassins.  Agent Calder.  A goofy physicist with a thick accent and a bad dye job.  A billionaire, arrogant, self-absorbed –

Liam drags a hand into his hair, blunt fingers on his scalp, scratching straight down to the nape of his neck.  He gives it a soft squeeze, sighing silently.  He’s seen enough death.  Enough good people fighting for a war that never seems to end.  His palms are smeared with enough red.

Most of it from Andy.

There’s a soft knock at the doorway, knuckles thumping gently against metal.  He lifts his head, startling some and nearly knocking over the cold coffee, and his eyes find Zayn in the doorway.

Zayn smirks, loose hair almost in his eyes.  He pushes his glasses up his nose, the scruff returned to his features.  The clips of the sun outside make his eyes look like they’re on fire, all oranges and gold and hickory.  He’s got on a loose button down, messily done up, bluish light peaking from beneath.

Liam hates the warmth that spreads under his skin but he’s trained to ignore things like that.  He gives Zayn a small, sad smile in return.

“You don’t look happy to see me,” Zayn teases, stepping into the office without invitation.  There’s a flash of an overconfident grin that Liam avoids staring at as Zayn says, “But, actually, I can’t see your dick, mate, so I could be wrong.”

Liam shoots him a stern look.  His spine goes rigid.  “ _Malik_ – “

“Back to that, eh?” Zayn asks, wandering over to the desk.  He props himself against it, his thigh close to Liam’s elbow.  Neither of them falter but the heat that races up Liam’s skin is disarming.

Liam drops his head, chewing his lip, staring at all of the papers scattered on the desk.

“Zayn,” he whispers, wincing at the fondness trying to crawl up his throat.

“Better,” Zayn smiles.

Liam shakes his head, his next breath coming out like a sigh.  Zayn is pushing him but, at the last second, pulling him back from the edge.  He realizes it but doesn’t comment.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” he jests.  His lifts his eyebrows but not his eyes.

“Can’t help being wickedly handsome?  Sick with mechanics and robotics?  Bloody brilliant at – “

“Being a right asshole,” Liam huffs.  His voice is rough without intention.

Zayn pauses, tapping his fingers on the desk.  His brow wrinkles and his tongue brushes the dryness from his lips.  His fingers smooth out some of the wrinkled papers spread in front of Liam.

“Avengers stuff?”

Liam tenses, distracted by the stiffness in his own spine.  “It’s – s’none of your business,” he grunts, eyes watching Zayn’s careful fingers.

“Higgins already told me,” Zayn shrugs, pulling the papers apart, lifting a few to examine them in grey light.  “I want in so – “

“No,” Liam hisses, snatching the papers back.  He drops them carelessly on the desk.

There’s a twitch right up Zayn’s exposed forearm, his cuffs shoved up to his elbows in that habitual way he does.  His shoulders slouch but the need to argue tightens Zayn’s mouth.

“Just – can we not have a proper chat about this right now?” Liam requests.

Zayn nods, leaning back some.  His fingers circle the rim of Liam’s cup, an idle movement that Liam’s eyes track.  The quiet starts to fill their spaces and Liam lets out a harsh breath just to stop it.

“What d’ya want?” he asks, squeezing his eyes shut.

All of the Technicolor behind his lids keeps him floating because Zayn feels like an _anchor_ and he’s bloody great swimmer.

Except Zayn makes him feel like he’s _drowning_ , like the tide is too high, the waves too deep.

Zayn relaxes, his teeth gnawing away at his bottom lip.  The cut is healed, nothing but a smeared line now but Liam can still pick out the scar – even a galaxy away, he can still see Zayn’s frightful eyes in the dark.

“Need to go by my offices,” Zayn replies.  “Was thinking you could take me – “

Liam scrunches his face, narrows his eyes.

“ – to grab some supplies.  M’gonna work on improving some of Horan’s ideas.  His tracking devices.”

The immediate _‘no’_ wadding in Liam’s throat sits uncomfortably, growing in size as he holds it down.

“He’s bloody clever – Horan,” Zayn continues, looking down, watching his own fingers circle the space around Liam’s hand, “Never knew there was someone half as brilliant as me in the city.”

Liam furrows his brow, all of the wrinkles deep.  He sighs loudly with the frustration rapidly coating his cells.

“Just need a few things,” Zayn grins, ignoring Liam’s ragged breaths.  “You in?”

“Have a few SHIELD agents take you,” Liam grunts, stretching back in his chair.

Zayn reaches out, grabs at Liam’s elbow.  He gives it an affectionate squeeze, rubbing at the material of his uniform like it calms Zayn more than it does Liam.

“Don’t wan’ them to,” he whispers with a lowered chin.  His lip turns red from the attention his teeth give it.  “I want you.”

Liam quickly jerks away.  Zayn’s touch burns.  Its uncontrollable chemicals and Liam singes too easily.

“Zayn – “

“Liam,” Zayn interrupts, looking up with something a bit sad around his eyes.  “Please.”

The pressure on his lungs subsides for a few seconds when he stares up at Zayn.  Beneath the armor, something hopeful sits in his eyes.  A time bomb, he thinks but maybe it’s not Zayn?

He drags in a quick breath, hating himself, before his lips part for a cautious smile.

“Okay,” he mumbles and counts backwards from ten until the dots behind his eyelids disappear.

He pretends not to notice Zayn squeezing his wrist, a quiet _thank you_ that they both know doesn’t exist.

After all, Zayn hasn’t changed and Liam’s just following orders.

 

++

 

“Sir, you’ve returned.”

Liam watches the thrum of a lazy smile sliding over Zayn’s mouth at the sound of the computerized voice when they shove through the doors to his office.

He managed to sneak Zayn in through a few emergency exits, calling up Ms. Watson to clear out the floor before they arrived.  He’s stuffed Zayn into a loose hoodie, a pair of scuffed trainers, glassy sunglasses, something Zayn argued against but Liam’s not daft.  _Whomever_ or _whatever_ is after Zayn hasn’t stopped just because of one missed attempt.  He knows protocol, knows Zayn can’t be seen here.

Or anywhere.

Zayn needs to be a ghost.  He needs to be an afterthought.

Liam finds it funny because, for him, Zayn hasn’t felt like either one for days now.

“Geez, JARVIS,” Zayn half-smirks, tugging off his hood, tossing the sunglasses on an empty lounge chair, “you sound as if you might’ve missed me.”

Liam takes a quick peak into the open space outside of Zayn’s office – _empty_.

Just the dead buzz of some online radio station at Ms. Watson’s desk.

Zayn bites his lip when Liam softly pushes the door closed, running his eyes over him quickly.  Liam crinkles his brow and Zayn lets out a breathy laugh, turning.

“Most people around here either hate me or are too busy kissing my arse to notice,” he adds, scrubbing an absent hand through his dark hair.

It’s even softer, hanging limp over his forehead, the lack of product at the SHIELD offices something he whines about daily but Liam doesn’t care.

He thinks Zayn looks – well, _nice_.

It’s the only word he’s comfortable thinking without finding a need to adjust a leaking cock in his trousers.

“Sir – you know I’m incapable of any emotions,” JARVIS replies.

“Right, right,” Zayn laughs, shuffling around his desk, kicking at the empty bin next to it.  “S’ppose so.”

Liam leans against the door for a moment, eyeing Zayn.  He watches with an unconscious breath burning under his ribcage.  The sun filters through the massive window behind Zayn’s desk, a cradle of light around Zayn’s broad shoulders and over his sharp features, flicking flames over his long eyelashes.

Even buried all of the rubbish clothes, the messy hair, the pile of stubble, Zayn catches his attention.

He wonders what the world would think of _this_ Zayn.  All of the beauty scrapped away, the tailored suits and shiny shoes ditched.  The natural boy with soft lips, bruises from an attack, the light off his arc reactor still glowing under his chin.

Liam bruises his bottom lip, shuffling his feet over the floor, looking down when Zayn throws him a curious glance.  All of his thoughts are daft, undisciplined.  He knows better.

He shouldn’t be thinking about this boy who looks so different – _better_ , he thinks – than all of the images of him on the cover of _GQ_ , _Time Magazine_ hanging like an art gallery to his ego on the walls outside of his office.

“JARVIS,” Zayn calls, messing about with the papers on his desk.  He swipes through a few tablets, holograms projecting across the walls, a collection of digitalized screens hovering in front of them.

“Sir?”

“I want all of the files – where the fuck,” Zayn grumbles, using his hands to move all of the screens around him, “I need all of the files on recent armed weapons created.  The transactions, mate.  Our buyers, locations and the lot.”

“Even the files Mr. Winston has stored, sir?” JARVIS inquires.

Zayn bites a corner of his bottom lip, just shy of the scar he earned a week ago.  “Yes, JARVIS.  C’mon, we’re on a tight schedule, mate.”

“Downloading sir.”

Liam shifts off the door, moving about the office.  He fixes the snapback on his head – a gift from Niall who was a little too into the thought of _‘disguises and bad guys like a proper Bond film, mate, I fancy the concept’_ when Liam told him the plan – and drags his feet over the carpet.

He avoids Zayn, moving along the walls, thumbing along the neatly arranged stack of magazines on an end table.  There’s a bookshelf opposite a modernist sofa and Liam smiles to himself at the gathering of novels.

The names are recognizable, all a little too pretentious for him but Liam would prefer finger through a worn copy of _Where the Wild Things Are_ than anything by Tolstoy.

Liam licks at his lips, peeking over his shoulder at Zayn.  He’s still swiping through a dozen different screens, biting his lip, a small wrinkle between his eyebrows.  His fingers scratch at his stubble, shoulders slumping some and he looks –

He has to look away, finding a messy pile of sketches near the sofa.

“Sir, Mr. Winston’s files seem to be encrypted.”

Zayn huffs, pushing fingers into his hair.  He doesn’t wince when he tugs a little too hard.

“Override them.  Crack ‘em.  I don’t care,” he sighs.

Liam smirks, fingertips smudging pencil lead across the lines as he shifts through the drawings.  They’re a dark silver – _charcoal_ – when he looks at his fingers and it’s the first time he doesn’t flinch at the color.

“Attempting to bypass the firewalls, sir,” JARVIS says but Zayn’s only half paying attention.

He’s shuffling papers around again, kicking his chair out of the way, digging through drawers.

“Also,” he hums, leaning over his desk, “download all the specs on the Mark I to the laptop at SHIELD.  Y’can get through their systems, right?”

“Sir, you created me to – “

Zayn smiles downward, long eyelashes fanned over his cheeks.  “Hack into any mainframe this side of the Thames.”

There’s a hint of arrogance in Zayn’s voice but it’s fragmented by his own awe.  A shred of disbelief.  His head lifts, a lazy grin on his lips when he stares at Liam.

“I did that when I was bored at fourteen.”

Liam puckers his lips into a soft pout.  He sighs loudly before he says, “No mates or a girlfriend to keep you busy?”

“Three girlfriends and I was nicking my dad’s Bentley to chill with me mates on Saturdays,” Zayn counters, a laugh under his breath.  “I was still bored.”

 _Arrogant_.  A right bastard Liam thinks but he shifts away instead of scolding Zayn.  He blinks down at the drawings in his hands, rolling his shoulders until the tension falls away.  They’re all messy doodles, specs written in pencil on the side, things he can almost make out – a suit made of metal.  Iron, maybe?  He’s not sure.

“These are nice,” Liam says, holding up a few, ink and lead smudged on his fingers.  They shine like liquid silver in the light when Zayn looks up, amused.

“Think so?”

Liam nods, swallowing down that bashful feeling but his cheeks still glow a pale pink.  He clears his throat, moving through the room, further from Zayn.

“I mean,” Liam starts, thrown by the way his voice wobbles and the frustration leaking through his cells, “I dunno _what_ ‘m looking at but – I reckon they’re nice.  Like a comic book, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Zayn breathes and Liam swears there’s that thick drag of awe in his voice again.

This boy is a lazy star in the dark, dark sky, still not bright enough to light anything up.

“Just some stuff I’ve been messing about with,” Zayn shrugs and Liam can see him trying to slip back into that cockiness once more.  He hates that.

“They’re good,” he says, shaking his head.  He should just shut up.  “They’re, um – _sick_ , right?”

Zayn laughs, a knocking echo in this office made of glass but it’s the most genuine sound he’s produced in hours.  It draws attention to the red in his cheeks, the embarrassed grin on his lips when he stops the wheezing giggles.  There’s a little twitch at the corner of his mouth and Liam focuses on that rather than the way the sun makes Zayn’s eyes look like the tips of a phoenix’s flaming feathers.

“My dad,” Zayn says while dragging a hand into his hair, “he was a bloody great artist.  He did some sick stuff.  Cartoons or ideas.  Massive robots that could fly and stuff.  Things t’make me smile.”

He perches himself on the end of the desk, feet kicking back and forth, heels knocking against the wood like a child.  His smile touches his eyes when Liam wanders closer, still a few yards away but not so far into the shadows anymore.

“My mum,” Zayn laughs, eyes crinkling, “she would nag him for not making me focus on my studies.  She’d tease him and laugh at all of his awful jokes while he sketched.  She’d make dinner and they’d be sat in his favorite chair, together, until they were knackered.”

Something sad dips into Zayn’s voice, fingers picking at the loose threads on his jeans.  His head drops, his nose twitching.

Liam turns his eyes away because he knows Zayn needs that.  He needs to be anything but a tragedy on display.  Liam gets that.  He honestly does.

“He always said I had his talent for art,” Zayn adds, a little softer.  He shrugs leisurely, scratching the back of his head.  “I don’t think so.  He was better.”

“You’re great,” Liam blurts, flinching at the way his voice sounds so insistent.  He kicks balled up pieces of art on the floor like a football, waiting patiently until Zayn lifts his head.

They share a quiet stare, biting down on their smiles, chests moving in some weird synchronization as they breathe.

“Files downloaded, sir.”

“Thanks JARVIS,” Zayn mumbles, groaning while hopping off his desk.

Liam turns his back to Zayn, schooling his breathing.  There’s a thin film of sweat on his forehead, his fingers squeezing the drawings a little too tightly, this awkward drumming behind his ribs.  He can see his cheeks in the reflection of some weird metal piece of artwork – a stain of ugly pink all over his face.

“Just so we’re clear, mate,” Zayn says with a thick grin.  Liam spins and catches Zayn running his eyes over his back, the expanse of his shoulders, the fit of his arse in his jeans –

Liam glares back at him.

Zayn coughs out a laugh, biting his lip.  “That wasn’t you trying to chat me up with all of that talk about my shitty art just to get me to take my trousers off again, right?”

Liam drags in a rough breath, scowling at Zayn.  Cocky, just another reminder of why he absolutely hates being around Zayn.

“You’re a prick,” he hisses.

Zayn shrugs, wriggling his eyebrows.  “Been called worse.”

Liam groans, drops the sketches onto the sofa.  He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers before asking, “Why do you have to – “

“Have dinner with me.”

It’s abrupt, a bit rushed.  It comes out so quickly, half-mumbled like Zayn isn’t meaning to say it.  It almost sounds like a request, the way Zayn’s voice drops low and questioning but it’s more of a suggestion and Liam’s confusing breaths following Zayn’s shy stare rattles him.

Liam leans onto the bookshelf, crossing his arms, blinking at Zayn.  “I’m not one of your conquests, Malik,” he says, watching Zayn flinch at the name.  “I’m not, like, I’m not here to be a notch on your bedpost.”

Zayn smirks, crossing the room.  “Don’t have those, which is like, I dunno, a shame.  Makes it harder to use the handcuffs – “

Liam clears his throat, a rough and garbled sound to silence Zayn.  “I don’t date, well,” he scuffs the anxious flinch in his voice, “I don’t _date_.  Especially not assignments.”

There’s a bitten frown on Zayn’s lips.  Sprouts of disheveled hair fall in his eyes and Liam thinks of pushing them behind Zayn’s ear but –

He scrunches his nose when Zayn moves in closer.

“It’s just dinner,” Zayn offers, low, intentionally relaxed.  He flicks the end of Liam’s nose, giggling at the way Liam startles back into the bookcase.

Long fingers wrap around his elbow to steady him and Liam feels the burn through every layer of clothing, not that he comments on it.

Or _pulls away_ like he should.

Liam blinks down at those fingers, his mouth twitching.  Zayn watches too, a wild fascination, a dare in his eyes when they lift – waiting for Liam to drag away from him.  His tongue is a little too heavy to argue and he has to swallow a few breaths to stop the stammer in his throat.

He shoots Zayn a stern look when he recovers.  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go out in public.”

“That’s not a no,” Zayn teases.

Liam frowns.  “We’re not going out where a thousand people can see – “

Zayn smirks, his thumb teasing the bones in Liam’s elbow.  “Who said go out?”

Liam should’ve recognized the hint an hour ago.  He should’ve resisted because, right now, he feels compelled to do anything but follow orders.

He watches Zayn’s stretched smile, chapped pink lips.  The slow climb of fingers up his biceps, towards his shoulder, Zayn’s soft breath close to his face.  It’s minty from whatever brand toothpaste he uses and his tongue peeks behind his teeth when he grins.

There’s a hand brushing the lower part of his cheek and Liam carefully thinks about how he still hasn’t managed to tell Zayn _no_ , even though the word has been sitting on his tongue for the past five minutes.

 

++

 

Liam is expecting Zayn’s flat to be somewhere at the core of London in a shiny building with a doorman and clean white carpets.

It _almost_ is – the top floor of Malik Industries hollowed out to create a spacious loft with large windows looking down on the blinking city.  It’s like they’re floating somewhere in the clouds, so far up that Liam thinks the oxygen is much thinner.

Nothing but modern furniture, neat paintings, piles and piles of unfinished gadgets.  It’s just a small star orbiting the grunge of the city.

“Make yourself at home,” Zayn smiles, toeing off his trainers by the door, padding over the soft carpet – _pale cream_ instead of white but that doesn’t stop Liam from laughing to himself – towards the open kitchen.

Liam sniffs, the flat heavy with cherry blossoms and sharp cologne, kicking out of his own boots by the door.  The carpet is soft beneath his socks, slow footsteps guiding him into the loft.

He grins against his knuckles, watching Zayn shrug out of the loose hoodie, dropping it in a heap on the way to the kitchen.  The jeans ride low on his small hips, the waistband of tight boxer-briefs exposed.

Liam shies away from looking too long, studying the effects of the sunset on the open spaces of the loft.  All of the smudged orange coating the furniture, the pink glossing the shiny island in the middle of the industrial kitchen.

“Sir, Ms. Watson says you’re not allowed alone in the kitchen unless – “

Zayn grins, rolling his eyes.  “Screw Caroline, JARVIS.  I’ve got this.”

“So shall I have emergency services on standby, sir?” JARVIS offers.

Zayn laughs, the throbbing sound echoing through the loft.  “JARVIS, you’re ruining my moment.  M’trying to be _impressive_ here.”

Liam cocks up an eyebrow, spots the way Zayn smiles over his shoulder, cheeks pulverized pink dust.

“You sure this is safe?” Liam wonders, dragging calloused fingers over the cold marble of the island.

Zayn gives him a shrug, yanking open the refrigerator.  “Dunno,” he grins, shuffling through the mostly empty fridge, “I haven’t been in here since that last fire when I made pancakes.”

Liam chuckles, stumbling towards the windows.  He presses his hand to the glass, feels the breath of cold air outside against his palm.  The city is a cluttered constellation from here – darker, specks of red from brake lights, winking whites from the lights in the buildings.

“I used to dream about being a fireman,” he whispers, streaking his fingers down the glass.  “When I was a kid.”

Zayn snorts but the noise isn’t even condescending.  It’s almost affectionate.

“Always trying to be brave,” Zayn mutters, pulling out pans and spices.  “Always rescuing someone.”

“It’s pretty sad, innit?” Liam frowns, watching his reflection.

“Nope,” Zayn counters.  Liam watches him lick his lips in the glass, his smile turning crooked.  “Where would we be without superheroes?”

“I thought you said they didn’t exist,” Liam mumbles.

Zayn huffs a quiet laugh, leaning over the island.  Liam looks over his shoulder, watching Zayn’s teeth tear gently at his bottom lip.

“Did I?” he wonders, lifting his eyebrows at Liam.  “Sometimes I – “

Zayn lets the words trail off, staring down at his hands.  The only shine in the kitchen is some overhead light, all yellowy and dulling Zayn’s features, but it runs warm glow over his skin and his tattoos and Liam’s sort of thankful for Zayn’s silence.

He gives him just a moment to appreciate another side of him.  He’s not entirely certain this isn’t a trick of light but he watches closely.

“Doesn’t matta,” Zayn sighs, smirking.  “How spicy do you like your curry?”

 

++

 

“S’not too spicy, yeah?” Zayn asks.

They’re sat on the floor in the longue area, bowls of spicy salan and rice spread around them, glass bottle Cokes near their fingertips, legs folded under them while their knees brush.  The lighting is dimmer, just the flood of city glow and a dark purple skyline flicking a shine in through the massive windows.

Liam coughs into his fist after a bite, shaking his head.

“You’re a shit liar, Payne,” Zayn laughs.

Liam ducks his head, a large swallow of fizzy soda washing down the chicken.  “It’s, like, it’s _good_ , mate.  I swear.”

Zayn hums, giving him an approving nod before forking through his own bowl.

“Y’can say I’m shit in the kitchen,” Zayn swears, smiling around his food.  “My mum used to always drag me arse into the kitchen on Sundays.  Told me no proper lad could survive without knowing how to make at least one dish.”

Liam bows over his bowl to hide his smile.  He thinks he can remember his mum saying something similar in a smokescreen of burnt food and unevenly baked desserts because she was horrible in the kitchen.

His father never complained.  Not once.  He misses that.

“I can only remember a few of the recipes,” Zayn sighs, tilting his head down.  Soft hair falls in his eyes and his mouth twists awkwardly.  “I wish I would’ve – “

There’s a pause and a hesitation that Liam recognizes immediately.  He knocks a few knuckles to Zayn’s knee, startling him from a frown.

“She raised a bit of a spoilt bloke with ego issues,” Liam grins, mouth half full of food, “but she did a proper job in the kitchen.”

All of the smeared shadows in the room are countered by a few lit candles Zayn has near the fireplace.  They catch on his face, the soft shyness he’s unable to hide.  He drags his hair back with a lazy hand, lips wrapping around his bottle.

“Really?”

Liam snorts and nods.  He shoves playfully at Zayn’s knee and watches all of the contours in his jaw go slack.

“She was so illk,” Zayn sighs, leaning back on his hands, his food forgotten for a moment.  He stares off to the windows, nothing but dark clouds and tiny stars.  “I was only fifteen when she died.”

Liam knows.  He’s read the files, studied all of the clippings attached.  Incurable brain cancer.  She was only supposed to survive until Zayn was eleven.

She was a fighter – Liam wonders if, beneath all of this arrogance, Zayn is too.

“I miss my parents too,” Liam whispers.

He can’t take his eyes away from the way Zayn looks in someone else’s clothes – so young, the cuff of his jeans hanging over his heels, the shirt stretched enough to show his collarbones, the sharp shine underneath.  His mouth quirks, just a little, some of the sadness falling away.

“My sisters too,” Liam adds, puffing out a breath.  “It’s weird, them not being around.  No one to bother me.  Always so – “

“Alone?” Zayn offers and this feels familiar.

Grainy black and white footage but from a more recent memory he thinks.

Zayn smiles in the fuzzy light, his nose wrinkling with the stretch of his mouth.  “We’ve been working on studies.  Clinical cases.  My baba was obsessed with finding a cure and – I just never stopped.  I couldn’t.”

Liam’s thumb burrows beneath the rips in Zayn’s jeans to scrub along a bare knee.  He doesn’t know why but he likes the connection.  He enjoys the heat under the denim.

Zayn nudges closer to it, shuffling through his food with his eyes lowered.  He’s still smiling.

“My company,” Zayn says, pausing like it’s the first time he’s said it, “We’re doing bigger things than creating wars, Liam.  It’s just – it’s hard, man.  I try my best.”

Liam nods, choking down the argument.  He’s not certain but the way Zayn’s teeth bite nervously at his lip makes him forget what he was arguing for in the first place.

“You’ve nice dimples when you smile, mate,” Zayn comments and it’s the distraction of his accent and his fire-lit eyes that prevents Liam from noticing the hand reaching out to brush skinny fingers along his cheek.  “You should smile more.”

Liam blinks at him, unsure, but his reflexes lead him to lean into the touch for a breath that gets stuck in his lungs.

“Shut it,” he grumbles, dropping his eyes to watch Zayn’s bouncing knees.  He wonders if Zayn drags his hand away because the flush of Liam’s cheeks burns him.

He swallows and pretends none of his thoughts even exist.

Zayn rolls away, almost knocking over dishes and catching Liam in the mouth with a sock.  He lands on his back, arching his spine to get comfortable, hands crossed behind his head.

“It’s late,” he says like an afterthought.

Liam stretches his legs out, their ankles knocking, his feet fitting between Zayn’s legs.  He wiggles them back and forth, feeling like a teenager strung out on too much caffeine and horror films on the weekend.

“Should get back to SHIELD,” Liam remarks but there’s not enough conviction in his voice.

There’s not enough _need_ in his bones to leave this little spaceship floating above London.

Zayn looks lazy in the dulling light from the sky and flickering candles and overhead glow from the kitchen.  He looks wanton, slack, comfortably stretched with his shirt riding up, exposing the ink on his hips.

It’s a sight that diverts all of Liam’s senses to his cock, briefly.

“We could get smashed.  I think I’ve like some sick vintage wine in the cupboards or summat,” Zayn suggests, half-twisting on the carpet to look towards the kitchen.  He doesn’t move to stand up, lazy motions that cause Liam to nudge a few toes to the heart of Zayn’s calf.

“Maybe smoke a bowl?” Zayn offers, low, under his breath.

The skin between Liam’s brow knots when he says, “I _don’t_ – “

“Bullshit,” Zayn snorts.  “You’re lying.”

He’s propped up on his elbows, his shirt wrinkling up to expose his bare torso, lips played neatly into a crooked smirk.  His hair is still messy, tipping into his wild eyes and Liam’s jaw tightens at the way Zayn’s laugh is more shocked than mocking.

“I don’t,” Liam repeats, stiffer.  “And I don’t lie either.”

Zayn hums something soft under his breath.  He wiggles his feet back and forth, calves bracketing Liam’s.  His smile is docile, eyes flicking over Liam like he’s thinking.  _Memorizing_.  His next laugh is breathier, quieter in the way his lips barely part for it.  The shine underneath his shirt slips across his throat, knocking away the shadows under his jaw.

It’s a fuzzy light in this dark, the kind of smudgy glow from a dream.

Liam misses dreams.

“Relax, Payne,” Zayn hefts, cocking his head to the side.  His lashes fight against loose hair.  “S’been awhile since I chilled with a lad around my own age, ‘s all.”

“I’m ninety – “

Zayn sighs, a low chuckle colliding with the noise as he waves Liam off.  “Y’get what I mean, Liam.”

He doesn’t notice the way his foot is nudging at the seam of Zayn’s jeans in time to his slow breaths until Zayn flicks an eyebrow up at him.  The flush dilates under his skin, everything going pink but Zayn giggles and nudges back.

He stretches, balancing on one elbow, to sneak his fingers under the cuff of Liam’s jeans and wrap around his ankle.  Soothing strokes that Liam shouldn’t get attached to.

“What about all of the people around you?” Liam chokes out to distract himself.

He’s rubbish at trying not to look abashed when the undertow of Zayn’s smile falls on him.

Zayn exhales a flustered breath.  “All the birds want me dick to get to the money.  A free shopping trip or a chance to say they fucked Zayn Malik,” he says, his tone low and gravelly.  “Some of the blokes too.”

He’s blinking up at the ceiling now, stretched back out on his spine, his arm straining to keep contact with Liam.  There’s still a gentle hum under his breaths, his vibrato a neat little growl and Liam doesn’t know the song but he listens to the words.  He memorizes the _‘all this bad blood here won’t you let it dry?’_ as it rolls softly off Zayn’s tongue.

Zayn sighs, fingers still on Liam’s bones.  “Or they want an interview,” he continues, frowning.  “An exclusive.  A look inside the company or summat.  S’no one who just wants to – just chill.”

“I’m not here to chill,” Liam tells him.

Zayn sits up, the harmony of muscles and strength as he moves glowing.  He cocks an eyebrow, white teeth pulling in his bottom lip.

“Then what are you here for, Captain?”

Liam swallows.  He blinks at the shadows and the dying flames and the city outside the windows.  He steadies his breathing and misses the moment Zayn crawls onto his knees, grinning.  His legs stay parted while Zayn shuffles between them, closer, breath on Liam’s face.

“Can you,” Zayn pauses, balancing himself with a hand squeezing at Liam’s shoulder, his other one braced on Liam’s thigh.  He looks up through his eyelashes and they’re almost at the same height when Zayn stammers, “Can you, like, kiss me now that I’m sober?”

Liam’s brow wrinkles up in confusion.  “I’ve kissed you.  Back at the cabin.”

Zayn sighs a laugh out, shaking his head.  Teeth work nervously at his lip, his cheeks neon pink in the dark.

“Not like,” Zayn tenses, muffling his words, “I mean, like, that was different.”

“How?”

Zayn groans and it’s so far from obscene in intention but it comes out like a throaty growl that presses a firm, invisible touch to Liam’s dick.

“That was because,” Zayn sighs and Liam can’t help himself.

He fixes a hand to Zayn’s jaw, a thumb sneaking behind his ear, the stubble prickling his palm.

“How?” he repeats, firmer.

The noise in Zayn’s throat sounds like a whine before he pushes back into Liam’s touch.

“It was sex,” Zayn moans with his fingers digging into Liam’s thigh.

“This isn’t?”

He won’t let Zayn move closer.  His eyes study the blue of the arc reactor, the highbeam whites of the moon outside, all of the plays in color running across Zayn’s shoulders and his face, catching in kaleidoscope drops on the shine of his eyes.

Zayn swallows, ruining his bottom lip.  “It’s not just – like I know what I’ve said but – “

Liam hums, drawing his knees up but keeping his thighs spread.  He runs an arm around Zayn, finally tugging him in.

“Call it what it is, Malik,” Liam whispers, rough, teasing.

Zayn groans when their noses nuzzle.

The shadows keep playing off their lips and Zayn’s so close that he’s a blur in front of Liam.

“It’s _not_ , mate,” Zayn swears but Liam doesn’t believe him.

He doesn’t trust anyone in this city.

Still, the racket of his heart in his ears and this pulse under his veins speaks volumes.  Long lines of unsaid words that he doesn’t care much for.

Liam tips Zayn’s jaw into position and kisses him.  Not for Zayn.  Not for the begging or maybe the longing in his eyes that might just be honest.

He kisses Zayn, softly, without the technique he’s certain all of Zayn’s best kisses possessed, because it’s all he can think about.  Because he likes the light press of Zayn’s chapped lips.  He likes the tremble down Zayn’s spine and the way Zayn’s fingers feels so different pushing down on the nape of his neck.

It’s _freeing_ but he can’t quite explain why.

Liam just tries harder to kiss Zayn like he wants him to remember Liam.  Not a nameless shag or someone using Zayn as much as he’s using them.

The sugary taste of Zayn’s tongue flicking at the seam of his mouth and the way Liam slouches on the floor, half-pressed to the end of the sofa while Zayn crawls into his lap feels like he might be winning a battle.

“Fuck,” Zayn groans against his mouth and, yeah, maybe Liam is a little closer to winning a war too.

 

++

 

The water is different here.  It’s softer, still a steamy hot that stings his skin but there’s a prickling feeling down his spine that soothes just a little more.  In this glass box, this artificial rainstorm, he hauls in a breath of smoke provided by the heat and lets his hand streak down the glass door with his head tipped back.

With his legs still shaking and this lightheaded feeling from Zayn being on his knees for Liam an hour ago.

Right here, in Zayn’s massive bathroom.

Zayn’s smiling into the crook of his neck, slippery hands brushing soap off of Liam’s narrow hips.  His nose nudges Liam’s jaw while Liam’s spare hand presses to the dip in Zayn’s spine, fingers skimming the curve of his bum.

“You’re getting better,” Zayn teases and Liam thinks about his words for a moment before Zayn surges up to kiss him.

He can taste his come still on Zayn’s tongue – oddly tangy and bitter but exotic when pressed into his mouth by Zayn’s tongue.

Liam falters in his footing, quickly pulling his hand off the door to grab the nape of Zayn’s neck.  He plays in the hairs back there and tries a little harder.

He swears he’s still too sloppy and clumsy but Zayn whimpers a soft moan into his mouth.  He grinds against Liam and Liam can feel him plumping up again – himself too, but he’s still a little raw from Zayn’s tongue, the way he used his teeth and curled his lips so beautifully around the crown of Liam’s dick – from just the snogging.

It tickles something low in his stomach, a small display of fireworks, but he ignores it.

His thumb brushes the sharp line of Zayn’s jaw and he concentrates on learning how to kiss properly.

How to kiss this boy properly, actually.

They’re awkward when they fall apart, Zayn’s laugh in his ears, his own grin slipping over Zayn’s bare shoulder.  He tuts a breath to Zayn’s temple, flicking his tongue out to shape the cut that’s faded off of the skin there.

“Shut up,” he mumbles into Zayn’s wet hair.

Zayn hip-checks him but squeezes Liam’s waist to keep him from moving too far.

“Stop thinking s’much when you’re kissing me, mate,” Zayn suggests, low and raspy.

The pound of the water creates this funnel of sound around them and Zayn’s accent licks gently into the acoustics when Liam does just that – he doesn’t think.

He hinges Zayn’s jaw open with fingers and a tongue, breathing roughly through his nose when Zayn tips his head back.  His auxiliary fingers tangle in that dark, damp hair while the steam creates a fog.

The hot water refuses to give out and it’s nothing like that tiny cabin a few kilometers outside of Wolverhampton.

Even under the spill of heat, Zayn budges closer and there’s a tiny barrier between them.  A frame of steel, a bluish glow that blinds Liam.

Zayn stumbles back some when Liam stares down at the arc reactor.  He’s trying to hide in the steam but Liam grips his hip and jerks him forward.

They knock together.  Liam forgets his strength sometimes but he sighs quietly at Zayn’s wide eyes looking up at him.  He keeps a hand low, sliding with the water until he’s palming Zayn’s arse.  His other hand sneaks between them and he manages to fit it over the entire arc reactor.

Zayn looks down, teeth nicking at his bottom lip.

“Does it ever, like – does it hurt?” Liam stutters.

Fat drops of water sit on the brim of Zayn’s long eyelashes.  He blinks them away, still staring down.  Their feet shuffle, the water circling the drain, and Liam counts each of Zayn’s breaths before he speaks.

“Do all of your scars still hurt mate?” he asks around his bottom lip.

Liam wants to tell him not since the serum.  He heals too quickly.  There aren’t any scars to look at – not visible ones.

Instead, he bumps his lips to Zayn’s forehead until Zayn tips his chin up.  He keeps a hand on the cold steel, the other squeezing gently at Zayn’s bum.  He draws in to brush a quick kiss to Zayn’s swollen lips.

He doesn’t know why but he wants to be the catalyst – the thing that _calms_ Zayn.

“At first, it did.  When I first woke up after the attack,” Zayn admits, his shoulders hunching up.  He sniffs and Liam rocks in to press their foreheads together.

He wants to hear all of those syllables waiting on Zayn’s tongue.

“Yinsen,” Zayn pauses, blinking rapidly.  There’s something shiny in his eyes that’s not from the shower.  He coughs, turning his head, whispering, “He did what we could in the beginning.  Kept me alive.  Built what he could so I could survive.”

Liam’s fingers outline the metal, alternating between soft skin and solid steel.

“It was a shit piece of thing in my chest,” Zayn laughs but Liam thinks it’s to cover something else.  Zayn’s forehead presses to Liam’s shoulder and _right there_ – the whimper – echoes between thudding drops of water.

“But it kept me alive.”

The water is still hot, scalding over his skin, but Zayn shakes in his arms.  He gives Zayn’s bum a little bat, teasing, but Zayn shuffles in and a breathy sigh cools over Liam’s neck.

“When I got back to London.  When I – “

Liam squeezes tighter.  He keeps circling the arc reactor with his fingers.  His lips draw lazy lines over Zayn’s cheek.

“After I’d dealt with my baba’s death,” he continues after a beat, eyes squeezed tightly shut.  “I spent hours in the basement of this building.  Mucking about.  Trying to perfect this thing.  Trying to, like, I needed to _live_.”

Liam taps dull fingernails at the metal.  Zayn’s hand scurries between them and covers Liam’s, presses it down onto the metal.

“Hide off for awhile.  Didn’t want no one t’see me, like, proper fucked,” Zayn says, his voice tight like he’s holding his breath.

Liam puffs his chest out to press their hands firmer over the circle in the middle of Zayn’s chest.  He doesn’t realize he’s whispering _‘breathe, breathe, let me feel your heart’_ until Zayn goes a little slack against him.

“Didn’t want anyone to get a picture ‘cause it’s weird, innit?  Big piece of – _piece of shit_ in the center of me chest, like.  Kept me shirt on for photos and shit.”

He’s laughing again, still simulated and artificial but Liam lets him.

“Yinsen was a good gent,” Zayn huffs.  “He deserved to live.  My baba and mum deserved to live.  I’m just – “

Liam cranes his neck, bends his knees to get at the right level and kisses Zayn quiet.  He doesn’t want – doesn’t _need_ to hear the rest.  He doesn’t want to think about Andy or the war or how, decades later, there’s someone else still taking that first breath out of the ice.

In this artificial pillow of smoke, he hates how he can see how much Zayn is like him.

How all of those blots of ink in your story can start to smudge and smear, leaking through all of the pages.

“Enough about me,” Zayn laughs when Liam pulls back.  He licks at his lips, his tongue catching all the droplets of water.  He’s got a shameless look in his eyes with a crooked smile and hands pushing Liam back until he’s pinned to a transparent wall.

Liam shifts an eyebrow up, trying not to fight back.

“You’ve done so well with the, y’know, snogging,” Zayn says with a snort.  His thumbs create little circles on Liam’s skin, right on his hips.

“Have I?”

Zayn blurts out a laugh, rolling his eyes.  “A step above decent, mate,” Zayn grins.

“That’s fair,” Liam shrugs, still confused.

“I sorted out if you’re a quick learner,” Zayn smirks and he’s kissing down Liam’s chest with the rest of his words, lips circling a soft nipple, fingers scratching the thick trail of hair just under Liam’s navel, “then maybe if I give you enough head, you’ll be brilliant at returning the favor?”

Liam sucks in a sharp breath that knocks his lungs wide.  Zayn’s already lipping at his navel, brushing fingers through the thick wiry hair around the base and Liam’s dick is twitching into a semi before he can react.

“Sounds,” Liam swallows, nervous, “like you’ve sorted it all out.”

Zayn brushes his stubble along Liam’s fattening cock, just across the base.  He’s got a loose grip around the shaft, a tongue flicking over the flash of a pink head behind the foreskin.

“C’mon, babe,” Zayn snickers, his voice so raw and gritty now, “I’m a billionaire, playboy, fucking genius.  This part is easy.”

Liam doesn’t know why he thinks about whether Zayn’s knees are cold on the tiles or if Zayn’s licking his lips to remember the flavor of Liam’s precome or because they’re dry.  He’s unsure why his feet shift apart to give Zayn room or why this sweet shock of electricity rolls up his spine when Zayn mouths at his dick but never swallows.

His hands keep sliding off the walls and his hips have nothing to anchor them when Zayn pulls the foreskin back to suck on the head.

He just shuts his eyes, rocks gently into Zayn’s mouth, and lets his mind float up with all of the steam.

Liam’s waiting for the water to go cold but it doesn’t.  It beats his skin into a soft pink while Zayn slurps around his cock, needy little moans that echo along the tiles and Liam drags his pulsing dick over Zayn’s tongue until most of his thoughts go cold instead.

 

++

 

It’s not the spill of sunshine low in the London sky, flooding through the too large windows around the loft that wake him.  It’s not the fingertips shallow on his bare spine, breaching under a tangle of sheets.  It’s not the floor he’s asleep on rather than a bed because he likes the carpet pressed to his cheek rather than that drowning feeling he gets from being in a soft bed.

The rough sound of a throat clearing startles him, fingers ready to reach for his shield, elbow catching someone in the cheek.

“Oi,” Zayn groans, rolling away, kicking back.  “S’the fuck wrong with you mate?”

“He’s probably wondering why the bloke he’s supposed to be _watching over_ is arse naked next to him on the floor, son.”

Liam rolls away quickly, sheets tangling around his legs, harsh sunlight stinging his eyes.  He throws a hand over them, shadowing the burn, blinking up dizzily at the ceiling.

Ben is standing over them in a pressed suit, hands on his hips, half-scowling.

“Fuck off, Ben, s’too early,” Zayn moans, rubbing at his eyes with the leftover sheets slipping low on his –

The heat on Liam’s cheeks burns right down to his chest.  He stumbles a little, stretching to grab his clothes.  He sighs into his forearm because at least he’s wearing pants and dumb socks.

“Where’ve you been?” Ben asks, dragging his condescending eyes off of Liam to glare at Zayn.  “We’ve been worried sick, mate.  The board – “

“The board can piss off,” Zayn grumbles, shagging his fingers through his hair.  He steals Liam’s watch from the carpet, grunting at the time before Liam snatches it away.

“Too fucking early.”

Ben kicks a shiny shoe at Zayn’s hand, admonishing him silently with a shaking head.

Zayn flips him off, rolling onto his back.  There’s a soft red imprint on his cheek from resting it on Liam’s forearm and Liam only half remembers them stumbling into the longue area last night but –

Colorful neon flashes of his lips chasing down Zayn’s neck in his mind.  Fingers making pretty little bruises into Zayn’s hips.  Laughing into each other’s mouths and Zayn suggesting _‘the bedroom, maybe, I’ve got proper lube and rubbers, mate – ‘_ but Liam hesitated.

Harry would say he was bricking it at the idea, though he’s not sure what that means.

But the thought laid like heavy iron on his mind – the bedroom, the bed, the nightmares.

 _Andy_.

Zayn’s mouth stilled on his jaw and he tugged Liam all the way down to the carpet without asking another word.  Just easing Liam down, crawling into his lap for a few more kisses before stumbling off to a spare cupboard – his hard cock tenting his joggers and leaking a dark spot into the gray cotton.

Curling around each other, slow hands peeling away clean clothes, anxious lips dragging at exposed skin until their eyes were too heavy.

“There’s more important things than the board, Ben,” Zayn coughs out and Liam shakes out of his daydream.

He rolls onto his stomach to hide his stiffening cock, burying his face in his forearms to disguise the blush on his cheeks.

“Such as?” Ben wonders with a tight jaw.

Zayn breathes out something heavy, barely exerting himself to sit up.  He draws his knees up, forearms resting on them, his mouth going crooked.

“I want to shut down the weapons division.”

Liam hears the snarl in Ben’s voice, the refusal.  Its low but he catches it, narrowing his eyes at Ben’s feet.

“Quit being a wanker,” Ben huffs.  “You’re being mental, mate.”

Zayn scowls up at him with a harden jaw.

Ben lifts surrendering hands, shaking his head.  He paces along the carpet in small circles, mumbling.  “Okay, Zayn – mate, we should talk about this.  Put some clothes on,” he waves but Zayn doesn’t falter.  Liam looks away again, cheeks getting hotter.  “We can have a proper chat.  Ring up Caroline.  Have some tea.  Have a good smoke, clear your head, lad – “

Zayn’s brow gets tighter.  “My head is very clear.”

“You’re mad, Zayn,” Ben barks.  There’s a tint of red in his face, the sun blowing it orangey from this angle.  “The weapons division funds nearly three-quarters of our profit, son.”

Liam licks at his dry lips when Zayn flinches.  His teeth keep biting away at his bottom lip until Liam is certain he’s going to bruise it.  He shuffles into a shirt, his jeans while watching Zayn.

All of those instincts he’s kept quiet seem to roar like a hurricane touching down.  The ones that tell him to crawl over the carpet, shield Zayn, keep him safe.

“And I want it shut down,” Zayn finally says, jerking his chin up defiantly.  His eyes are soft, eyelashes flicking shadows from the sun on his skin.  “I see a different vision for the company.  For my baba’s dreams.”

Over his bare shoulder, when Liam takes his eyes off of Zayn’s spine and the peak of his bare arse beneath the sheets, Zayn shoots Liam a crooked smile.

Liam ducks his head, turning his eyes away.  He finds Ben giving him a look that he doesn’t have time to decode.  Something cold anchors to his shoulders when Ben narrows his eyes.

“And I wonder what made that happen,” Ben scoffs, balling his fists into the pockets of his trousers.

Stinging flush burns over Liam’s skin.  It’s an instant irritation but this is not the place.

He’s not meant to be _here_ , in Zayn’s loft.

“Zayn, son, listen – “

Zayn shakes his head at Ben’s placating tone.  “No, Ben.  Am I not the head of the company?”

Ben stiffens, shoulders going rigid, his mouth tight.  He glares at the floor, lips twitching.

“Sure, right.  You’re the boss,” he mumbles, cocking his chin up.  He stomps past them, exhaling hard when he yanks open the door.  “I’ll just leave you to it, yeah?  M’sure you’ve got more _pressing business_ to settle, correct?”

He leaves it sitting open, not waiting on a response.

Liam’s impatiently waiting for the relief to bleed into his bones but it doesn’t come.  It sits in a tight knot, high on his spine.  It rubs roughly in those hollow spots between his ribs.  All of the cells gather like collected raindrops while his brow crinkles into a jagged line.

“Hey,” Zayn smiles, rubbing at Liam’s ankle.  “You wanna grab a cuppa?  I’ve got some time before – “

It’s a jolt right into his veins and Liam jerks away.  He desensitizes his thoughts and all of those memories of long fingers on his scalp while he slept –

While he dreamt instead of shaking awake.

“Are you not embarrassed?”

Zayn’s eyebrows come together in confusion.  “About?”

Liam groans, waving his hands between them.  At his rumpled clothes and Zayn’s naked skin and the sun spinning this neatly blanket of gold over them.

“I mean, mate, s’not the first time Ben’s walked in on me after a proper night of shagging,” Zayn giggles and Liam’s breath hitches a little too loudly because Zayn falters.  “Not that – “

Liam digs his knuckles into the carpet, exerts his muscles to push himself to his feet.  He’s shaking his head before the rest of Zayn’s stuttered words can crowd the atmosphere.

He’s still a right bastard and Liam can’t clean his system of the rest.

“I’m not your one-off, Malik,” he grunts, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  His shield is in the hall, his boots by the door, his sensibility downstairs in the lobby somewhere.

“I didn’t – “

Liam sighs loudly.  He doesn’t bother stretching to work all of the tension out of his muscles.  He quickly moves to the door, pulling on his boots.  He scrunches a nose and thinks of ringing up Tomlinson for a car.  Maybe Calder.

He can walk instead.  Or run.  He needs a morning run.  He needs to run far from here.

“I’m a solider,” he adds, not bothering to look over at Zayn, still on the floor and tangled in sheets.  “And you’re – “

Liam swallows that thick guilt riding the muscles of his throat.  He can’t fit the word into his mouth so he doesn’t bother attempting to.

“I’ll have a few agents come pick you up.  Get you somewhere safe,” Liam says, sternly.

“I thought you were s’ppose to keep me safe?” Zayn asks and, under the arrogance, there’s something sad.

Something bluish in the middle of that iron.

He doesn’t answer Zayn.  He stomps into the hall, keeping his head low when he marches past Ms. Watson.  He stays close to the wall all the way to the lift.

Suddenly, he doesn’t want the world to see him again.

 

++

 

“Want another one, son?”

Liam looks up from his small collection of empty beer bottles on the old wooden bar.

It’s just some dive pub at the edge of the city.  Far enough from SHIELD.  Even further from Malik Industries.

Piss-poor lighting, smoke soaked into the atmosphere, a cheesy jukebox and scratched up pool tables with an uneven row of motorcycles out in the graveled car park.  There’s whisky and rum spilt over the grainy wood and he’s slumped on a stool, giving quick glances to the static of a footy match on the old television while people shuffle in and out.

It’s the sort of place Andy would love – getting pissed for the night, chatting up birds, stumbling all the way back to Liam’s and climbing in through his one-story bedroom window while trying not to wake his parents.

Liam sniffs, smoke in his chest, fingers around his mostly empty beer bottle.

“Sure,” he shrugs with his leather jacket loose around his shoulders.

“Give ‘im a vodka and two for me.”

Liam face tenses.  He barely lifts his eyes when Louis flops down on the stool next to him, spinning beer bottle tops between his fingers.

“Quit following me,” he grunts.

Louis’ brow lifts high.  “How’d you – “

“You’ve been following me since I left my flat,” Liam explains, tilting his head.  He takes another swallow while Louis nods.  “You’re rubbish at looking _incogn – incog_ – you’re horrible at being _sneaky_.  Car gave you away.”

Louis snorts, looking through the ratty shudders at the shiny Ferrari in the lot.  He shrugs lazily, spinning to face the bar.

“I might’ve learned to fancy the finer things SHIELD provides once I went straight,” he says and Liam flicks an eyebrow up that Louis laughs at.  “ _Figuratively_ , mate.  I can still fancy cock and fight the good fight.”

Liam makes a face before drowning his next few words in his new beer.  He flicks his shot glass towards Louis, shaking his head.

“Not my type,” he mumbles, rolling his shoulders under the leather.  “Plus it does nothing for me.  Super Soldier serum and all.”

Louis hums, downing a shot.  He shoots Liam an appreciative smile, saluting him with a second glass before swallowing.

“Part Russian,” Louis giggles and Liam sighs before looking up at the telly.

“Y’can go away now,” he says while biting along his lip.  “I’ve no interest in why Higgins sent you to find me.”

“Malik’s been asking about you.”

It sounds sudden, fuzzy over the static of the television and the buzz of the jukebox and the riot of the loud voices in the pub.  Liam scrunches his brow, slouching further over his beer.  The sour taste on his tongue isn’t from the fuzz of his beer this time.

He looks down at his watch and counts the ticks.  It’s a trick his grandfather taught him – _calm, calm, calm_ when all he can think is –

Fight, fight, fight.

“He doesn’t need me,” Liam says.  It’s meant to be for Louis but, somehow, it feels more like a reminder to himself.

“You’re s’ppose to watch over him, Payne.  Keep him safe.”

“He’s safer without me,” Liam argues, his voice soft and uncertain.

He wonders when he started to lie so academically.

“That’s shit,” Louis dismisses, his eyebrow still cocked, lips pursing.  “You’re Captain Britain.  You’re meant to keep the world safe.  It’s your job.”

“And what’s yours?” Liam scowls, half-turning to glare at Louis.  “Keeping secrets.  Living a lie.  Never living the same life day after day?”

Louis tilts his head back, wrinkling his brow.  He snuffs a smile over his mouth, stealing Liam’s beer.  He takes a long sip, shrugging.  “The truth is only what people want to believe,” he says, glancing around the room.  “Not everyone wants to know your life story.  Just some of it.  Enough to keep them busy.”

“That’s a sad way to be,” Liam mutters.

Louis shrugs again, leaning back on the bar.  “But it’s a good way to stay alive.”

Silence falls into their spaces like a pile of wet autumn leaves.  It sticks to his shoulders, heavier than before, and Louis passes back the beer.  Liam lets it sit by his elbow, scratching his fingers at the wood of the bar.  It’s soft but not like Zayn’s skin.

He hates that, four days later, he hasn’t stopped thinking about an artificial rainstorm and cold steel under his palm.

But he hates the reminder of Zayn Malik, smug and arrogant, quite a bit more.

“Higgins didn’t send me here for Malik,” Louis says, offhandedly.

The yellowy lights above the bar drown out the blue in Louis’ eyes when Liam looks up.  He breathes out a sigh, signaling the bartender for another beer.

The effect still doesn’t kick in and Liam’s angry because of it.

He just wants the buzz and the dizziness and the world to fall away.

“Then what?” Liam asks, drumming his thumbs on the bar.

“Mission,” Louis says, his own tight leather jacket noisy as he stretches over the bar to snatch up a cherry.  He pops it off the stem with his tongue, juice slipping down his chin.  “Intel thinks they’ve picked up something about Lloyd.  Who hired her.  Base of operations.”

“So send in some agents,” Liam sighs, his rough fingers trying to smooth under the collar of his jacket to rub over the nape of his neck.

Louis’ laugh sounds mocking.  “Y’know the drill, babe.  No mission without the Captain.”

“Why SHIELD?” Liam asks, abrupt and coarse.  He watches the stretch of a smile over Louis’ dry lips.  “Why did you choose them?”

Louis slouches some, wrapping his nimble fingers around the neck of Liam’s beer bottle before he can grab a taste.  He slurps at it, shooting Liam a thoughtful look that is three-fifths genuine and one-fourth calculated.

“I was a product of the Red Room.  The people they said were my parents weren’t.  Never knew ‘em,” Louis says like a whisper, leaning his elbows on the bar.  He twists the bottle between his fingers, adding, “I’ve never had a proper family.  SHIELD seemed like a place to start that.”

“Is that the truth?” Liam wonders, squinting his eyes against the backlight of the television.

Louis gives him a lazy smile, a softcore shrug.  He tips his head back, pushing all of his hair back.

“Maybe,” he replies.

Liam snorts.  He’s not expecting much more from Louis but he likes the distraction.  He likes the way that these little moments between them feel like the most honest thing this world has to offer.

 

++

 

“What about Sunday night?  Busy cooking a Sunday roast for y’self and watching old black and white films?”

Liam bites at a smirk, watching Louis reloading his Glock in the shadows of the hanger.  He tightens the gloves over his hands, dropping his head to hide his face when Louis looks up with a smile.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the mission?” Liam groans, fixing his boots.

“I am,” Louis replies, his tone lofty.  “I’m multitasking, you arse.”

Liam rolls his eyes and slips his shield across his back.  There’s a dozen agents around them, loading rifles and securing heavy vests across their chests.  He can hear the whir of the jet nearby, this constant vacuum of air in his ears while someone shouts off coordinates and a plan of attack.

Eleanor is a few yards away, perched on a metal crate of weapons, pulling her hair up and securing her gun.

“Higgins is sending Calder out in the field with us?” Liam wonders.

Louis glances up, shrugging.  An uneven smile purses at his lips.  “Pretty massive deal, I s’ppose.”

“Yeah,” Liam breathes, eyeing Eleanor as she stretches.

“I mean, if _El_ – “

“Agent Calder,” Liam reminds him, grinning as he rolls his shoulders.

“El,” Louis repeats with wild eyes, “is coming along then I guess we all have our missions to complete.”

“ _Mission_ ,” Liam corrects, cocking an eyebrow.  “One mission, right Widow?”

Louis hums, securing his wristbands.  They’re already charged, glowing a sharp neon blue in the heaving shadows around them.  He turns from Liam, skintight black stretched all over his skin and hugging close.

“Right, sure Payno,” he mumbles, pushing his hair back.  “An order is an order.”

Liam watches him carefully.  His heart kicks back like a bass drum and the hanger doors parting to let fits of sun in doesn’t blind him to the way Louis smirks over his shoulder.  He’s walking away, huddling into the convoy of agents before Liam can reach out for him.  His lips twitch absently, fingers balled into fists, and his eyes stray just enough to catch Eleanor watching them with her arms crossed.

“Captain,” she tries to smile but it’s awkward.

He nods at her and the adrenaline fusing into his bones reminds him _trust_ is simply a five letter word he still hasn’t defined.

“This is mental.”

The weight suspended on Liam’s shoulders shifts uncomfortably.  His head jerks towards the doors, Harry gliding in, pricking the head of an arrow with his thumb while twirling his bow in his spare hand.  Stumbling behind him –

“ _No_ ,” Liam says immediately, stomping the short gap between them.

He shoulders around Harry, pressing a firm hand to Niall’s chest to stop him.  Niall wobbles under the pressure, looking down with a quick frown.

“He’s not coming,” Liam says to Harry even though his eyes refuse to leave Niall.  “S’not happening.”

Niall licks at his cherry lips with wide eyes, a small tremble curving his mouth.  His hair is out of place like always, blue eyes like streaks of lightning in the dim hanger, but he’s dressed in a SHIELD field uniform – all black with vests, a holster for a gun he doesn’t have, heavy boots making his steps clumsy.

“But – “

“Shut it, Horan,” Liam hisses, low, pleading.  “I won’t have you – “

Long fingers wrap kindly around Liam’s wrist, the middle and ring fingers wrapped in black tape for protection.

It’s Harry.  He can tell without looking.  It’s that thumb stroking the pulse point under Liam’s wrist, the soft tug like he’s trying not to be threatening.

“Direct orders from Director Higgins, Cap,” Harry says, pulling at Liam’s wrist.  “M’sorry.”

Liam keeps a firm hand at Niall’s chest, fingers slowly twisting into the material.  He can’t take his eyes off of Niall.

“Oh, c’mon Captain,” Calum calls out, his mocking laugh echoing off the mostly empty hanger.  “Let the little geek along.  Show ‘im how real SHIELD agents get the job done.”

“Yeah,” Ashton chuckles.  “We’ll keep him safe.”

“Need someone to load your piece for you, Hulkster?” Michael chokes out, his giggles halving all of his words.

Niall looks down, shuffling boots too big for his feet along the floor.  His shoulders drop and Liam watches fluttering blonde eyelashes coat his rosy cheeks in shadows.

“Quit fucking about,” Louis snarls, shoving at them.  “We’ve got a mission.”

“Captain,” Harry says, closer with a tighter squeeze around Liam’s wrist.  “Won’t let him down, okay?  I’ll keep him in my one o’clock.”

Eleanor clears her throat, inching into view.  She brushes her shoulder softly to Niall’s until his head lifts.  She smirks, wriggling her eyebrows when the tint of Niall’s cheeks goes a solar red.

“We need him, Liam,” she sighs, half-turning to him.  “He’s the only one that’s gonna be able to trace anything back to Malik Industries short of Malik himself and – “

Liam drops his hand, exhaling a harsh breath.  The engines of the jet roar behind him and he’s grateful that he can’t hear the rest.

He doesn’t want to know why Zayn isn’t being drug along.  He just –

He wants him _safe_.

Liam reaches out a cautious hand, wrapping calloused fingers to the nape of Niall’s neck to drag him closer.  Niall stumbles, nearly knocking into Liam on the way.

“Stay close.  Don’t get out of Styles sight,” he says to the shell of Niall’s ear, lips brushing the hot skin, his voice raw.  “Stay out of the way of bullets, y’hear me?”

He can hear Niall swallow loudly, feels the rough nod he gives him.  Liam sighs, ruffling his fingers into Niall’s hair before tugging away.

Louis is watching them from the drop doors, his expression smudged in the shadows of the jet.  His eyes glow like halved moons in the dark but his mouth is tight like he’s considering.  He’s thinking.

It leaves a dodgy taste in the back of Liam’s throat and suddenly he’s surrounded by agents meant to protect this world.

But, ten seconds from climbing on the jet, Liam’s certain he’s never felt so defenseless before.

 

++

 

“Watch your six, mate!”

“Where’s my six?” Niall asks, panicked.  He’s huddled behind a barricade of overturned desks, arms curled around his knees, his head twisted into his thighs.  “Fuck, I’m not wearing a watch.”

Harry grins down at him, a tease on his lips.  He snaps off an arrow without looking, catching an oncoming assailant in the throat.  Niall’s by his feet, shaking.

“Just duck,” Harry giggles, lining up another arrow, smooth arms drawing back the bow.  “And remind me to order up a pizza from that one place – “

“Are you really chatting about food right now, Styles?” Eleanor grunts while leaning behind a stone column already littered in bullet holes.

Harry shrugs, nudging his knee to Niall’s tight shoulder.  “Missions make me hungry.”

Eleanor makes a face, rolling her eyes before peeking out to fire off a few rounds.

“M-me too,” Niall stammers from the floor.

“Pathetic,” Eleanor sighs, puffing out a breath to blow the loose hair from her eyes.  “I want veggie.”

Harry laughs loudly, dodging a thrown knife before taking down two men in one shot.

There’s a wall of bullets hurled in their direction from across the long stretch of a dusty lobby.  It’s some abandoned building in Manchester, the walls barely holding up the ceiling and dirt caking their lungs.  Some condemned piece of shabby architecture on the outer rim of the city and it was too easy.

Too easy to gain access.  Too quiet when the agents flooded the lobby, peering around the corners, wedging open the doors of the broken lift.  Too empty for what they were looking for.

And Liam felt it, twisted and knotted in his stomach, under the flickering fluorescent lights and the dust falling like thick snowflakes from the ceiling.

It wasn’t a mission – it was an _ambush_.

He deflects whirling bullets with his shield, watching agents crawling over dead bodies.  The floor is smeared with crimson.  Dirt and mud on their boots, bullets chasing their skin.

“Stay down doc,” Harry advises, pinning down another target with a flick of his fingers.

Too close that time.  He was nearly over the makeshift barricade they created.  Their bodies and knocked over office furniture is the only barricade between their attackers and the lift.

They’re a little outnumbered, something Harry laughs at with pinkish cheeks and quick fingers, and Eleanor keeps calling commands in on the com around her wrist.

“Need some help over here, Captain,” Ashton huffs, ducking behind a steel cabinet with Michael pressing a hand to his shoulder to stop the bleeding.

Liam reacts instantly, leaping over bullet-worn chairs to knock a few men back with his shield.  He ducks a close-range bullet, hurling his shield into the crowd, clipping a few more targets as it curves back to his hand.

“Listen, if I die,” Niall stutters, flinching when the bullets clink off steel, “I was thinking, Agent Calder – “

“Horan,” Eleanor sighs, rolling from behind the column.  She snipes down two more men, crawling to a tipped over table.  “If you don’t shut your – “

“Oh, c’mon Calder,” Harry grins, flicking his wrist to spiral a knife at someone’s head while reaching down to muss Niall’s hair, “I think the poor bloke is trying to get the courage to ask you – “

“For a blowjob?” Niall shrugs.

Liam blinks into the thick of the dust, fighting off a few more men with kicks and a strong uppercut.  He swears Eleanor aims her gun at Niall’s head rather than the man crawling into their eyesight but she switches directions quickly, the clap of her gun ringing in his ears as it takes him down.

“Pretty bloody daft of you, Nialler,” Harry groans, kicking at Niall’s hip.  “Least offer her a proper dinner first.”

“Fuck off, both of you,” Eleanor groans but, through the smokescreen of bullets and clouds of dirt, Liam can almost see her smiling.

He jabs an elbow into a nose, bloodies his glove when his knuckles crack a jaw.  There’s arms around his throat, a gun pointed at his chest.  He’s huffing for oxygen but the adrenaline – this strange feeling that roars deep in his chest –

 _Fight, fight, fight_.

Liam kicks back the gun and uses the momentum to hurl the man splayed across his back halfway across the room into a few others.  He crouches down for his shield, blocks another parade of quick bullets.

“Need some back-up.”

“We’re losing the left side!”

He swallows and his vision is blurred.  It’s a pinwheel of blacks and whites and heavy grey.  _Charcoal_.  Stains of blood turned silver by the pulsing fluorescent lights above their heads.

“Where’s Widow?” Liam calls out.

Harry is on the floor, pinning someone down with his ankles wrapped around a throat and his fingers pulling at another arrow.  Niall is scrambling away, fumbling with a gun with the safety still locked.  Eleanor is crouching down to pull a few agents to safety and –

Everything in his lungs feels like lead.  He’s panting for his next breath but nothing fills his chest.

Liam keeps fighting.

“Styles,” he groans, hopping over a few desks, sliding in close.  “Where is Widow?”

Harry struggles for another arrow, furrowing his brow.

“Styles,” Liam repeats, firmer.

Harry groans, hopping to his feet like a cat.  He slices the air with two more arrows, his arm smeared with red like wet paint.  Liam can see the shattered glass jutting from his skin and thick curls falling out the usually neat ponytail Harry has.

“Second floor,” Harry mumbles.  A sigh seeps past his pink lips before he drags Niall out of gunpoint.  “Surveillance room.”

The lurch in Liam’s chest vibrates louder than the bullets off the walls.  He cracks his fist to another attacker.  Still too close.  He trades a look over his shoulder towards Eleanor, eyes squinted, his jaw pulled tight like it’s trapped by steel.

She nods at him, making silent hand gestures before providing a cover for him with her gun.

He doesn’t hesitate, turning to stride towards the lift.  His heels skid on the ground, too much velocity, too much momentum.  The doors are peeled open, bullets lodged into the steel and the chord holding the metal box is splintered into a thin line.

His weight will snap it, he’s certain.

Liam sprints towards the stairs instead, climbing two at a time.  The heavy metal door will leave a momentary bruise, he knows it, but he knocks through it.  He jogs over broken glass and under the fuzzy white glow of blinking lights to kick through another door.

Louis is sat at a dusty desk, clicking through a laptop, wiring all of the footage into a data port.

“What are you – “

A hand waves him off, a gun close to Louis’ fingertips.

“We’ve all got our missions, Payne,” Louis shrugs.  His eyes are narrowed slits of blue, his spine curved as he hunches over the laptop.

Liam stomps forward, ignoring the way Louis’ bare fingers tickle over the metal of his gun.

“And so you just abandon your team to do _what_?  Steal more intelligence?”

His voice is rough, still breathy from the run, but scratchy and tight.  It’s the way Zayn sounds when he holds smoke in his lungs for too long, the way Andy would sound after too little sleep in the field.

“Just doing my job,” Louis mumbles.

“And what’s that?  What team are you exactly playing for, mate?” Liam grunts, fingers squeezing into Louis’ shoulder.

He doesn’t flinch.  His fingers merely skate over his gun, his thumb playing with the safety.  His spare hand keeps clicking screen after screen, a flashing bar on the screen signaling a nearly complete download.

“Tommo – “

Louis finally jerks away, shrugging out of his chair.  It kicks back, rusted wheels squealing as it rolls into a corner.  He’s not tall enough but Louis pushes into Liam’s chest with his own, eyes squinted, mouth pinched.

“I do what m’told, Captain,” he hisses.  “Not everyone gets to be the hero on display.  Someone has to do the job nobody wants to talk about.”

Liam bites at his lip with fists at his side.  He stares down at Louis, his eyebrows pulled tightly together.

“When the bodies are done piling up, there’s always one bloke standing like the brave one,” Louis spits, his breathing accelerated.  “And then there’s the lad who shot the bullets to save that guy’s arse.”

There’s still a hailstorm of bullets below them, a filthy window overlooking the damage of the lobby.  It’s just a cloud of smoke from here and Liam knows where he belongs.  But Louis is wrong.  He’s rubbish.

He’s forgetting the guy who dies trying keep everyone else alive.

“Is that what you’re doing Widow?  Stealing information is gonna save us?  Protect me?” Liam asks.

Louis scoffs, stepping back.  The laptop alarms and he blindly reaches for the flash drive, pocketing it.

“I’m just _borrowing_ ,” he snorts, snatching up his gun.  “That’s what you call it, innit?”

Liam bites softly at his tongue, pushing all of his disdain to the roof of his mouth.

“There’s a leak at SHIELD,” he says because he can’t swallow it.

Louis raises an eyebrow, smiling.  “Y’think it’s me?”

Liam shrugs because one of them has to practice honesty.  He can’t hear Louis’ breathing over the gunshots now but he watches his face, the careful shape of it, his lips turning over like he wants to frown.  But Louis doesn’t give himself away that easily.

He’s never stitched his heart on his sleeve for anyone to see, not even when no one’s looking.

“I came to SHIELD to go – “

“Straight,” Liam fills in for him but there’s doubt in his voice.

Louis looks away, twirling his gun between his fingers.  His teeth catch on his lip and his other hand pushes all of his hair out of those steely eyes.

“Lloyd could’ve killed you.  She almost got to _Haz_ – Styles,” he says, the words undercut by his next heavy breath.  “And I helped create that.  If you think I’m a traitor, alright.  But if you think I’m gonna let her kill the only thing I know as family, then you’re full of shit, mate.”

His eyelashes flutter enough to distract from the soft line of his lips lowered and Liam’s fingers itch to reach out.  To wrap warmly around his cold wrist.  To maybe anchor himself to something because he doesn’t trust anyone but Louis is the closest thing to a _‘maybe’_ he’s felt since Andy.

The window shatters before he can move.  The glass clinks over the dirty floor and it’s just enough of a diversion that Liam doesn’t see the flashing device rolling over the floor until it’s a few seconds too late.

Fight, fight –

His chest heaves into these shallower breaths that ring so loudly in his ears.  His reflexes lead him, a hand reaching out this time, fingers wrapping tightly around Louis’ forearm.  He peels off his shield and drags Louis behind it before he can react.  Louis’ words are urgent in the air but they filter into Liam’s ears like white noise.  He coils an arm around Louis chest and tries to move but –

The jolt of the explosion knocks them from the room.  It hurls them into a wall, thick smoke filling his lungs until he’s dizzy.  Until the throb in his head and the weight of Louis unconscious in his arms goes heavy.

He’s gasping, trying to re-wire his lungs with fluttering eyes but he can’t stumble to his feet.  The ceiling gives and he tries to hide them under his shield.

He tries to be the hero while waiting for Louis to be the one holding the gun.

 

++

 

His shoulder still throbs from the wreckage, from holding his shield over them.  Someone’s forced Louis into an oxygen mask, dabbing the blood from his hairline.  Eleanor is directing paramedics everywhere, scrambling to check on what’s left of the agents.  The building is a lump of broken rock from the exterior, smoke lining the air like the clouds of a thunderstorm.

It’s choking his lungs and Liam doesn’t realize he’s walking, stumbling forward until he’s halfway to Niall.

He doesn’t realize all of the blue on his uniform is covered in dirt and ash, stained a gunmetal color in the light, until he looks down so he doesn’t have to stare at Harry’s sad smile.

His long fingers are clasped with Niall’s, a free hand brushing all of the messy blonde off of Niall’s forehead.  He’s strapped to a stretcher, wiggling his toes – _alive_ , very alive – with an oxygen mask and tattered clothes and blood rusted over his skin.

Liam can’t stop staring at the carwreck even if his feet barely move those last few giant steps.

Niall smiles weakly behind the mask, blinking rapidly like he’s trying to say _‘hello’_ and _‘I’m alright’_ and _‘did we win?’_ so Liam reaches out to squeeze his forearm.

“Yeah,” he whispers, leaning down.  “You were a real hero out there, mate.”

Pale, bitten-on fingers tug the mask away and his first breath is so ragged it sounds like _death_ but Niall grins wide enough that Liam mirrors it, even if it feels a bit dishonest.

“You’re the real, true hero, Captain,” he heaves, every breath drying out his words.

Liam looks down at Niall’s ashen skin and the sweat around his throat and he keeps waiting to look around and find Andy’s body in the wreckage.  He keeps waiting for Niall to pull out his trading cards, beg Liam for an autograph and for all of this madness to taste a little sweeter.

Niall coughs a laugh that makes his chest expand too wide, like he’s struggling for breaths, like all of the fear is still trapped behind those bruised ribs.

“There’s no way Calder is going to turn down a date with you now, Hulkster,” Harry teases, crowding in.  He whispers a little too loudly, a rough _‘you’re gonna make it and I’m gonna buy you a lager afterwards,’_ and tenses his fingers around Niall’s like the rest of the world isn’t supposed to hear.

Liam smiles down at him and brushes his thumb over the dried blood on the back of Niall’s hand.  He scratches it away, wants to wash all of the deep red and the cuts and the bluish bruises already forming over his pale skin away but –

The helicopters whirl around him, someone urging him to let go so they can load Niall into one and Liam feels his lungs contract a little too tightly when Harry walks away with a lowered head.

Louis tugs off the mask, teeth fumbling at his lip and Liam turns away.

He turns into the sun and waits for the sharp light to burn away all of his memories.

He’s been waiting seventy years – no, _his whole life_ – to wake up from this nightmare.

 

++

 

The scalding water pelts against his skin leaving it a sharp pink and he ducks his head under the spray to watch all of the dirt and ash circle the drain.  He breathes these heaving pants that echo in the locker room, somewhere in the pits of SHIELD, no one else around.  The sting is usually so delicious but not now.

It just burns and does little too soothe the ache under all of his muscles.

Those grainy images of Niall strapped to a stretcher and the slump of Harry’s shoulders and the almost apologetic look on Louis’ face.

His fists knock into the tiles, cracking it, leaving behind red smears.  His knuckles will heal quickly but his head –

He’s drowning.  Not in the water or the blood this time.  In the _guilt_.

The guilt that rides so massively heavy on his shoulders because his first thought, on the helicopter, watching the wreckage, feeling his heart finally start to slow, was of some daft boy with too much money and ego but this heavy metal heart Liam needs itching under his fingertips.

He keeps punching into the tile.

He’s cross with himself with his head hanging low and his stomach muscles clenching and relaxing.

Shaky breaths, sterile soap filling his senses, steam coating his lungs, his hands trembling when he’s done punching.

When he’s done fighting.

Liam wants to pretend that sting at his eyes is leftover dirt but it’s not.  His next gasp of air is a restrained sob and he glares at his blood on the wall until the water washes it off.

He can’t do the same for his guilt.

 

++

 

Liam finds Higgins perched on the other side of his desk, shoulders squared and heavy, long trench, an almost remorseful expression wrinkling his face –

Except Higgins is like Louis – he rarely shows his cards.

Louis’ flash drive is next to his white knuckles and he’s staring blankly at Liam in the doorway.

There’s a madness underneath Liam’s skin and a monster sitting on his tongue but he crinkles his eyebrows together and grinds his teeth.

All of his old habits twitch and he doesn’t bother to stop them this time.  There’s too many clouds in his head and not enough light in his eyes to find a clear path.

“We were set up,” Liam says because the screeching train in his head doesn’t derail, “It was an ambush.”

“Clearly,” Higgins replies, patiently.  He scratches his temple, inhaling deep.

“Why didn’t you – there’s a _leak_.  Someone is setting this up.  Feeding the enemy our next move,” Liam rushes, stepping into the office.

He thinks he can still feel the prick of shattered glass in his skin but the bite feels much better than the blank stare Higgins keeps shooting at him.

“We know,” Higgins sighs.

“So what are you doing about it?” Liam snaps.  The tension coils around his forearms, curls at his fingers until they ball into stiff fists.  He thinks of punching Higgins, knocking that absent look off his face.

Just for a reaction.  Just for Niall.

“Captain, we are investing all parts of the operation but – “

“Horan was nearly killed,” Liam interrupts.  His breaths are still ragged like Niall’s on that stretcher.  “You sent him into the field and we nearly lost him.  Tomlinson is – “

“Tomlinson is following direct orders from me,” Higgins clarifies, something finally flinching in his expression.

“Rubbish,” Liam scoffs.  His jaw is too tight so he breathes through his nose, fills out his chest and swallows the bile.  “He’s just another casualty of power.”

Higgins snorts while his fingers spin the flash drive over the glass desk.  “S’that what ye call it?  Power?  Do you honestly t’ink that if SHIELD held the power here we’d be chasing ants in a maze?”

Liam’s eyes harden, his teeth pinching at the tip of his tongue.  He can’t shake the grimace etched into his features.

Higgins doesn’t bother to flinch.

“And what about Niall?” Liam asks, the scratch in his throat unbearable.

Higgins sits up some, shoulders rounding, small eyes growing smaller.  “Dr. Horan knew what he was getting into when he – “

“He’s lying in an infirmary,” Liam barks.  Everything he’s been trying shove out of the path of the fire keeps burning up in the embers.  His skin is too hot and his head – it’s a throb right along his lobe.

Higgins tips his head back, takes in a deep breath.  His jaw tenses to the rhythm of Liam’s heart and his fingers squeeze around the flash drive in his palm.

“He’s going t’be fine,” Higgins replies, slow, too calm.  “His team is working on something to help him.  He’ll live.”

  1.   Calculated.  Everything Liam expects from Louis.  Everything Higgins taught him to be.



Liam’s fingers press firm, sharp half-moons into the soft of his palm.  He’s clutching at nothing but his fingers keep squeezing.  He can’t lift the weight off of his shoulders even though he feels strong enough to so he keeps staring at Higgins.

He’s waiting for him to finally crack and –

Higgins drops his head, sighing.  He blindly reaches for a cup of tea, slurping, practicing his breaths in the steam before he says, “Winston’s involved.  We’ve mostly tracked all of the madness at Malik’s to him.”

Liam blinks once, twice, a hundred times.  His fingers finally release.

“Everything,” Higgins says, firmly, like it’s meant to reveal something else.

Something greater or louder or –

“He’s the reason,” Liam pauses, pockets of air bouncing off the lining of his lungs like pinballs.  He swallows and shaking off this defenseless feeling used to be much easier when he was kid fighting bullies.

Higgins nods before he can finish.  “All of it, Captain.  S’what Tomlinson has been doing.  Tracking him.”

He holds up the flash drive squeezed between his thumb and index finger.  Something shiny piece of technology telling Zayn’s whole story –

A complete tragedy bound to metal rather than scripted in pages like all of those Sherlock Holmes stories his mum would read him.

“You’ve got to stop him,” Liam rushes out, his eyebrows wrinkled with an urgency.  He feels like, sounds like some pathetic reporter in all of those poorly sketched comic books he would read.

Some helpless human facing a monster.

“We plan to but he’s harmless right – “

“Niall nearly died,” Liam argues, his voice dimming when Higgins cocks an eyebrow at him.  “Is that _harmless_ to you?”

Higgins pushes off his desk, shaking his head.  He pats at Liam’s shoulder, squeezes it tightly but he’s not pacifying Liam.  It doesn’t feel that way when he moves his fingers up to squeeze the muscle between neck and shoulder.

“You’ve got a mission, Captain,” he says.

An order.

“And what’m I supposed to do?”

Higgins sniffs before dragging his hand away.  He paces the office, eyes on the floor, hands behind his back.

“You can’t tell Zayn.  He _can’t_ know.  Not yet, at least,” Higgins warns.  “You’ve gotta trust us – “

Liam tries not to laugh at him, ducking his head.

“ – to handle this properly.  We’ll take Winston down but we need a little more info.”

Fingers tighten into fists again but Liam feels all the blood rush to his head.  He feels his stomach clench.

“So you want me to,” Liam starts but Higgins spins on his heels, nodding before he can finish.

“Watch over him,” he mutters.  “Protect him, Payne.  He’s like a – his father was a very important man.”

Higgins falls into his chair, the squeak a little louder than his next breath.  He turns to the window, eyes the city while Liam watches the solemn expression in the reflection.

Liam walks away with vicious red moons imprinted into his fist and a cold feeling weighing down his bones.

 

++

 

The sun is shallow in the sky now.  Fizzed out oranges and sublime pinks leaking into the blue and the gaps in the blinds in this empty office coat everything in technicolor hues.  The tension in his hands as he leans over the desk, palms flat on cold metal, makes his veins standout.  It ripples the muscles in his bare forearms.  The files and old black and white photos spread in front of him are smudged gold from the natural lighting and Liam can’t stop thinking –

It ticks like the second hand of a watch, each moment.  Andy.  His little gang of misfits.  The war.  An old, faded photo of him smiling, a loose arm wrapped around her smooth shoulders.

A time that feels so foreign now.

“Hey,” Zayn says, from the doorway, half of a crooked smile on his pink lips and a ribbed Henley loose over his chest and the blue light glowing through the fabric.  A quick tongue over those lips, shiny in the aftermath.  “They say he’s doing a bit better.  Won’t let me see him.  The dumb fuck woke up and asked for pizza.”

Liam can’t hold the tension in his mouth long enough to stop the small smile.  He looks up, sighing.

Zayn is a little sad in the doorway, the rough start of evening leaving the halls behind him empty and dark.

Liam looks down again, messily stacking all of the photos out of sight.

“Hey,” Zayn repeats, stepping in, gently closing the door.  “You look – you alright?”

He doesn’t reply.  He keeps shuffling photos.  He keeps stacking his past into uneven stacks of black and white.

Zayn sneaks into his vision, a warm hand over the nape of his neck, fingers tracing all of the thick hair.  A hip nudges his and a solid weight follows and Liam exhales.

 _Hard_.

He squeezes his eyes shut, watches the solar eclipses of green and vicious purple behind his lids while Zayn hooks a chin over his shoulder.  Soft but chapped lips against his neck when a calm voice whispers, “Liam.”

An unconscious tremble floats down his spine and the feeling is chased by goosebumps.  He can almost taste relief but the secrets are toxic over his tongue.

“Liam.”

He bites down on his lip and the lies are too massive to swallow.  He breathes through his nose to keep them in his mouth.

Warm fingers brush under his jaw and even warmer breath strokes his neck.

“Hey, Liam,” Zayn says in this soft voice that could be a whisper but it’s a little too encouraging, deeper when he adds, “S’okay.  It’s alright.  Just – hey, look at me, babe.”

It’s not an order but Liam’s body reacts like it is.  He jerks his head up, leaning into the steel of the desk.  He feels frantic and caged because Zayn is right _here_ – fuzzy in his vision, strong but wiry against Liam, calculated fingers lifting his jaw higher.

“I get it,” Zayn mumbles but it isn’t sad.  He’s smiling, tilting his head like he’s amused.  “You don’t wanna talk about.”

 _Can’t_.  He can’t talk about it but he nods, tucking his bottom lip behind his teeth.

Keep the lies in and maybe he’ll believe them.

Zayn spreads large hands over the soft white cotton of Liam’s shirt.  His fingers find hollows – between Liam’s ribs, the dip in his chest, right around his collarbones – but he holds Liam steady with his eyes.

Burnt pieces of caramel in the sunset.  Little edges of the fire.  A sleeping phoenix.

“Can I help?” Zayn offers.  There’s little crinkles around his eyes, a shyness around the corners of his crooked mouth.

Liam shakes his head but his hands find Zayn’s narrow hips like _maybe_.  Like he’s finding an anchor or he’s trying to weigh Zayn down.  He’s gripping tightly because he’s never trusted his hands to be strong enough to hold anything after losing Andy.

Zayn barely winces, leaning in, crowding a smile to Liam’s throat.  His lips are softer when they’re wet, sliding over Liam’s birthmark.

“Y’can tell me,” Zayn adds, his voice scratchy from this angle.  “What do you need, babe?  I can go.”

An unexpected whimper vibrates on Liam’s lips and he tips his head back to hide his blush – or to give Zayn more skin to tease.

“I can stay.”

Liam sighs and it sounds pretty, delicate.  It’s on that fine edge of desperate and so viciously uncommon.

“I can listen,” Zayn whispers, teeth catching on his chin.  “Or I can – “

Liam’s hands slide beneath the hem of Zayn’s shirt, thumbing at skin, looking for a reaction.  He needs a diversion from the way his hips automatically push up to grind against Zayn’s.  The way the smoky vibrato in his voice makes Liam’s thighs tremble.

He needs to _pull away_ and _push towards_ Zayn all at once.

“Could you just,” Liam stammers, Zayn leaning in, dragging his body slowly against Liam’s.  He’s half hard in ripped jeans and Liam’s semi is getting thicker when Zayn laughs breathily into his neck.  “Could you just, like.  _Zayn_.”

Zayn hums, shivers when Liam’s hands find his spine.  He tugs at Liam’s shirt, pulls back enough until they can both work it off of Liam’s skin.

“I don’t know how to,” Liam pauses, feeling daft.  He feels absolutely ridiculous but that weight keeps getting lighter.  It keeps lifting like Zayn’s arms when Liam yanks off his shirt.

“What can I do?”

Liam wraps calloused fingers to the back of Zayn’s neck, pulls him roughly forward to slide their mouths together.  He twines his fingers in the thickness of Zayn’s hair and his hips jerk when Zayn moans softly into his mouth.

The cold steel of the arc reactor isn’t as surprising now but it prickles Liam’s bare chest.  He half attempts to impress Zayn with his kisses – the slow drag of his lips, his teeth biting at Zayn’s bottom lip, a quick tongue tasting sugar and something wickedly confident behind Zayn’s teeth.

“Could you – “

It’s still a stutter behind his tongue, hands pulling Zayn in, lips coaxing Zayn into something saturating.

“Hmm?”

Liam groans out of frustration rather than arousal but Zayn fits a hand between them, working at the button and the zip, tugging, and Liam immediately thinks _‘yes, that’s it, help me because I can’t’_ but Zayn freezes just to tease.

“I don’t know,” Zayn breathes, their noses nuzzling, “Is this it?  This what you want?”

They kiss lazily and the words keep building and building in his chest but they don’t come out the way he wants.  Not the words he _should_ say.

His hips hitch off the desk, a hand on Zayn’s neck, the other one helping Zayn work his jeans down.  He kicks out of them, his vocabulary reduced to small grunts and restrained groans when Zayn palms at the line of his cock through his tight briefs.  A thumb teases the soft hair on the inside of Liam’s thigh and he presses his forehead to Zayn’s to exhale.

He feels it all over his skin.  He’s ready to collapse from the weight and the guilt and the long list of people he was never able to save.

Zayn’s nose brushes his again.  “Hey.”

“Need you to,” he swallows, fumbling at Zayn’s jeans.  He’s clumsy and it’s embarrassing but he finally whispers, “Can you, like, make love to me?  I think they, um, well back then they’d say – “

Zayn laughs quietly, nudging in to kiss away Liam’s frown.  He squeezes at Liam’s shoulder, bony fingers digging into tense muscles and steps out of his jeans clumsily.

He waggles his eyebrows at Liam, knocking their foreheads together.  “Yeah.  I get it.  You want me to – “

 _Need_ , Liam thinks, closing his eyes when the blush burns at his cheeks.

“ – fuck you.  I get that.  I can, like, I can if y’want me to.  Fuck you.”

It sounds so filthy but it makes Liam’s cock jump behind the cotton, still rubbed soft by Zayn’s hand.  It stains the white cotton almost transparent, blurts of precome soaking the fabric.

But he wants that.  He wants Zayn’s obscene mouth and filthy tongue and anything to shake off this pressure cocooning around his skin.

He holds onto Zayn’s hips – _his anchor_ – while budging back, hopping a little onto the desk.  Zayn’s hands keep sliding up and down his thighs, ruffling the hair, squeezing the soft muscles.  He keeps kissing Liam like it’s a distraction but he’s not doing anything.  Just touching, just kissing.

It relaxes Liam and he angles his head enough for Zayn to finally lead him out of all of his stupid thoughts.

Zayn’s biting gently at his bottom lip and his kisses are maddening.  Liam feels infatuated and the slow tremble of fear keeps throbbing at the bottom of his spine but Zayn’s using one hand to tug at his briefs while the other strokes down the muscles in his back.  He’s _everywhere_ and Liam doesn’t have enough focus to wonder what that means on the inside.

They laugh at the way Liam’s slippery cock gets tangled in his briefs, precome splattering over his belly when his dick slaps against it.  His hips lift after Zayn’s gentle coaxing and there’s an amused little smile on Zayn’s lips when Liam’s thighs naturally spread.

“Should I – “

Liam is leaning on his words, cocking his head, wrinkling his brow curiously.  His legs wedged apart and he tips back to expose – _shamefully_ – just enough of his hole.

Zayn breathes something deep in a low register Liam doesn’t recognize.  His tongue flicks over his lips, eyes scanning over Liam’s throbbing cock, the tension in his thighs, the soft skin behind his balls and the smattering of hair all over.

“Maybe we should,” Zayn shrugs, wrapping precise fingers around Liam’s wrist.  “Just, like – get up.  Turn ‘round f’me, alright?”

Liam is hesitant, confused.  Zayn sees it, automatically.  He leans in, giggling, brushes a hot mouth over Liam’s chest.  He’s marking every little freckle and catching his teeth purposefully on Liam’s nipple.  Soft suckling, the noises deliberately dirty to shock Liam from his daze.  He mouths around the wet skin, huffing breaths over it until Liam shivers and claws fingers into Zayn’s hair.

They meet awkwardly for a kiss and Zayn is stronger than Liam figured.  He lifts Liam, gently, guides him off the desk and drags his mouth away from Liam’s with an arrogant grin before twisting Liam around.

Sweaty palms smack against the desk and Liam feels so vulnerable like this.

He’s so used to words like _brave_ and _strong_ and _hero_ but he hasn’t felt like any of those for hours.  The lips on the back of his neck and the soft hands under his ribs remind him.

His eyes flutter shut and he’s okay with this.  His cock fattens up at the idea of Zayn being the one to finally, finally rescue him.

There’s rustling behind him, Zayn not close enough anymore, muttering curses and denim balled between hands.  Liam settles his breath deep in his chest, stares down at his fingers flexing over the desk.  The veins stand out, his knuckles going white with anticipation.

Out the corner of his eye he watches an empty packet of lube slap on the desk and hears Zayn’s little joyful yelp in his ears before kisses dot his spine and cold fingers brush between his cheeks.

“You gotta relax,” Zayn swears before he touches the rim.  Just a skimming finger, a tease.

Liam shudders and his shoulders tighten while he counts softly in his mind.  His fingers squeeze at nothing while he slouches over the desk, his head lowered.

“Need you to breathe,” Zayn whispers, nuzzling stubble to Liam’s skin.

He wonders how pink he turns from the sharp brush or from the flush.

“Babe,” Zayn says, his accent so thick and his voice so achingly deep that Liam misses the nudge of a finger.

Pressure, pressure – he tenses and then relaxes and it drags all through his blood.

Zayn slips into the first knuckle, gentling against the tension, his free hand running soothing touches between Liam’s shoulder blades, wet kisses like strong promises over his shoulder.

It’s so slick and cold until it’s like the spark of a match.  A ripple effect Liam feels through his forearms and smoky in his chest and Zayn’s working in and out in this slow manner to help him.  Cooing gently behind Liam’s ear, grinning smugly when Liam carefully leans back into the touch.

“Keep relaxing,” Zayn encourages, biting at Liam’s shoulder.  “That’s it.  Ease back.  C’mon.  Doing good already.”

Liam mumbles to himself with tightly drawn eyebrows but he rolls his hips just so – his skin flushes at how _intense_ it is.

Zayn’s mouth over his skin and his finger nudging all the way to the second knuckle and the pulse between them so loud he can’t hear the city outside.

The finger inside him twists, curls, nudges over and over until Liam can’t stop himself from bucking forward, easing back.  He swallows that thick taste at the back of his throat, grinding onto Zayn’s finger.

A soft pinch is dropped on his hip, lips carrying warm breath over the knot at the back of his neck.  “Could use another?”

Liam bites down hard on his tongue so he won’t whimper but he nods stiffly, rolling his shoulders.

“Just so tight,” Zayn whispers.  His cocky grin drags down Liam’s spine and then – _oh_.

His second finger fits in there, sticky and slick and Liam squeezes unintentionally around it.  He gasps, falls forward a little, and Zayn moves with him.

He shoves his fingers deeper until Liam stretches all around them.

Zayn massages the tense muscles low on Liam’s spine.  His sweaty forehead rubs at Liam’s shoulder and they practice breathing together until Liam stops hissing.  He can’t keep his eyes open and his fingers keep scrambling over the desk.

But Zayn’s so patient behind him, still encouraging.

“S’okay, like,” Zayn huffs and it isn’t until now that Liam realizes he’s grinding a bare cock against the back of Liam’s thigh, “You’ve just gotta – _fuck_ , man, you’re tight.  Like, so tight.  If it feels this good around my fingers mate, imagine my dick.  Babe, like can you imagine?”

Liam groans, bowing his head.  He drops his forehead onto his forearm and spreads his legs like an invitation.

He knows he’s not ready, still clenching around Zayn’s fingers, still hissing a little too loudly when Zayn drags his fingers out before screwing them back in.

But he just _wants_.  It’s all he can think of – this want.

Zayn’s fingers are noisy inside of him.  They screw in and feel around, crooking, a rapid-fire motion like he’s already properly shagging Liam.

He groans into the desk and can’t help the arch of his spine.  That fire strips all over his bones while Zayn fingers him with an anxious abandon now.

“Like, when you squeeze around me fingers,” Zayn groans and Liam does just that – involuntarily but happily, “Like _that_ , babe.  You just – you’re gonna feel so good around me.  Taking me like such a good, good boy.  I swear – fuck, Liam.”

The whimper rattles in his throat and Zayn’s thumb traces the rim when he pulls out.  It feels Liam clenching and strokes playfully at the gap.  His dull nail scrap over the pink flesh and Liam’s half-tempted to shoot Zayn a scowl over his shoulder but he can’t really move.

He’s too overwhelmed.  He’s too ready for –

“Fuck, gonna – just need to,” Zayn says, breathlessly.

More shuffling, knees hitting the cold floor and then –

Liam is learning to relax for Zayn but he’s not expecting a hot, slick mouth closing over his hole.  A swift flick of a tongue, a quiet groan, teeth biting the soft flesh of his arse.  Zayn presses firm kisses against his skin, snuffling between his cheeks, licking him clean up to the dip in his spine.

His legs quiver and spread for Zayn.  He flushes at the pleased noise Zayn makes behind him and sinks his teeth into his own forearm.

Liam hides his face in the crook of his elbow when he whines at Zayn’s tongue licking around his hole.  It tickles, Zayn’s stubble, before it rushes him like a traffic scene.  A pileup.  His breathy moans all over the desk while Zayn presses his tongue rougher, stiffer to loosen him again.

He chews his bottom lip ruthlessly to quiet himself but his legs shift apart.  A sweaty hand swats against a cheek, the throb pleasant when Zayn rubs at the flushed skin.  He keeps his mouth over Liam’s hole, little licks, drawn out wet kisses left behind.

His cock sits fat and leaking between his thighs and Liam can feel the stretch now.  The way Zayn works his tongue in, tension caught in the pink muscle while he rolls it around.  Saliva dribbles down his crack and gets messy in the hairs on the inside of Liam’s thighs.

This feeling is – he feels so _open_.  Exposed.  So incredibly aroused but nervously dirty.  His eyes squeezed tightly shut and he gasps into the soft skin of his elbow while Zayn licks him into a composed state.

“Look at you,” Zayn whispers, another lick, smoothing his lips to the gaping muscles, “so wet.  Just for me, babe?”

Liam bites down on a response.  He finds a bit of resolve, resistance.

He fights against Zayn’s cockiness and his self-absorbed – _Christ_.

Zayn’s tongue squeezes into his hole like a finger and works him open, teeth nipping around the rim.  Full, flushing kisses until Liam whimpers – he almost _begs_.

He twitches around Zayn’s wriggling tongue, trying not to writhe and he can’t decide between squirming away or pushing back onto Zayn’s tongue.  He does a little of both and hates the knock of Zayn’s laugh between his legs.

Liam feels so slippery and wet around Zayn’s tongue, breathing harshly into his own skin.  His brow crinkles, his arse grinding back into Zayn’s mouth.  Shockingly brilliant fingers wrap loosely around his cock, a thumb easing the foreskin down, another set of fingers replacing Zayn’s mouth at his hole.

“Just need to,” Zayn mumbles and Liam jolts when he guides two quick fingers into him.  “Loosen you a bit more – fuck, Liam, you’re still _tight_.  S’nice, man.  Could come just watching you get ready for my cock.”

He wants Zayn to shut up.

Actually, he wants him to keep talking in that hoarse accent.  He wants to keep feeling Zayn’s breath play along the back of his thighs but it’s gone so quick.  Not his fingers – still fit between Liam’s cheeks, working deftly in and out, masterfully opening him – but his mouth.

Zayn tugs Liam’s hard cock awkwardly backwards between his thighs and wraps swollen lips around the head to suckle the precome off.

Liam whimpers, smacking his cheek into the desk, knees buckling a little.  He steadies himself, clenching at Zayn’s fingers but gliding the tip of his cock over Zayn’s tongue.

“That’s it,” Zayn cheers, lapping at the slit until Liam’s not sure if he’s wetter from Zayn’s mouth or his own precome, “Doing so good.  Almost.”

He’s loud when Zayn wraps his mouth around his cock again.  It’s his breathing and his ragged keening and that whine set in his larynx.  He feels himself shaking and he’s so close now.  Zayn’s fingers at his prostate and his lips playing with the foreskin and Liam’s feeling the cracks in the glass.

“Zayn,” he huffs, unable to control the anxious tremble in his voice, “I think – I don’t know.  I can’t like, I can’t hold it.”

Zayn smiles around his cock – the smug bastard pressing right down on his prostate with those long fingers.

“Babe,” he gasps and he hopes it’s not the achy wobble in his tone that finally makes Zayn pull off, drag his fingers out.

Zayn shushes him, so much quicker than Liam’s reflexes.  Those plush, swollen lips are at his shoulder again, wet fingers tapping his hip, a spare hand wrapping around the shaft of his own cock to smack the head against Liam’s bum.

“It’s gonna – like, it’s gonna properly hurt for a minute but,” Zayn smears kisses over the round of Liam’s shoulder, upwards to meet the juncture under Liam’s jaw, “it’s gonna be good.  Just gotta to remember – like, _relax_ f’me, okay Liam?”

He nods even though he can’t really hear Zayn.  Just the white noise between his ears.  Just the bassline of his heart and it’s uncomfortably loud right now.

The head of Zayn’s dick snubs repeatedly at his hole, trying to catch, his breath rattled in his chest.  Zayn spreads him and he’s embarrassed at the way he’s anticipating it.  He’s biting his lip and looking for something to hold onto while Zayn sinks the head in.

He should be considering a dozen things – Zayn’s sliding in bare, Liam’s been craving a kiss or a laugh pressed to his mouth for seconds, he’s letting Zayn under his skin, _he’s just a mission_ – but all he can think of is the pressure and the ache.

His hand slips back, fingers gripping Zayn’s hip, stopping him.

“Um,” he stammers, breathing harshly.

“S’okay,” Zayn whispers, leaning in, lips on his cheek.  “Can take our time.”

Liam nods even though he should be retreating.  He shouldn’t be tensing with Zayn splayed over his spine and his hole slowly opening for his cock.

“Oh my,” he mutters with that first scorch of lightning running jaggedly up his spine as Zayn slides deeper.  “I can’t – so good.  Zayn, it’s so – “

Zayn laughs a little into his shoulder, the stubble scratching his sweaty skin.  “Yeah,” he breathes, never nudging too far.  “Good?”

 _Wow_.

It’s an uncomfortable pressure but nothing overwhelming.  It sits like a knot at the bottom of his spine but then slowly unfolds.  It loosens and wraps lazily around his unused muscles.  He’s not certain he can adjust to having someone sliding inside of him or the way he knows he shouldn’t let it be _Zayn_ but –

Liam breathes a hard ‘ _yes’_ and Zayn sucks gently at the nape of his neck.

“So I can, like, fuck you now?”

Liam winces, shaking his head.  He’s abashed, his face hot, but he eases back onto Zayn’s cock, almost losing his balance on the glide, until he’s pressed to the wiry hairs at the base.

He feels so full.  He throbs around Zayn and he feels so completely daft when he moans, “C’mon, Zayn, y’can – “

Zayn doesn’t let him finish.  He carefully drags out to the tip and grinds back in, stopping halfway, building a tight rhythm until he knows Liam has adjusted.  Until Liam is scrambling a bit, loud streaking noises from his sweaty hands on the desk, frantic pants colliding with their wet skin smacking.

Fingers tighten into his hip and the lube, the saliva makes Liam loose.  It creates this wet noise he’s not ready for when Zayn thrusts in.

Zayn is confident over him, standing tall, pulling Liam back onto his cock.  Liam can’t look back, doesn’t want to know if Zayn’s face is gentle like this or smug with a brash grin and dark eyes.

He imagines Zayn’s soft like the thumbs he’s rubbing into Liam’s hips.  He’s cautious and affectionate with these lazy stares like he can’t believe he’s doing this for Liam.

Because Liam can’t believe Zayn is stripping him of the weight with just his hips and hands and his cock buried in him.

Liam likes that he can feel every bit of Zayn when he pulls and pushes.  When he sinks deep, nuzzling his hips to Liam’s arse, rocking his cock in short thrusts.  When he drags all the way until the tip sits inside and he wonders if all of Zayn’s precome makes the slide so brilliant now.

His cheeks is flushed, pressed to the cool desk, reaches backwards to twine his fingers with Zayn’s.  He mutters, “Harder.”

Zayn coughs a moan but doesn’t hesitate.  He grinds roughly into Liam, gaining momentum, changing his angle.  He jolts Liam further up the desk and the air is so thick with their sweat and musk and tangy from the sex.

He can’t keep quiet – he hopes everyone has cleared this floor.  He hopes no one’s on the other side of the door, listening with a sly smile at the way Liam falls apart noisily with Zayn pounding into him.

His thighs jump and his cock is dripping all over the floor.  Through the shadows and the awkward crane of his neck, he can see a small puddle between his feet and the transparent string hanging messily from the tip and –

 _Oh_.

He needs it more and more, biting down on his lip.

“Zayn,” he moans, abashed but sweetly.

“Feels good, right?” Zayn taunts, hips smacking against Liam.  “Feels nice with me in you, babe?  Dicking you until – “

Liam whines but his brain fizzles.  He doesn’t want Zayn to stop.

“So full,” he pants with a scrunched nose.  “I can’t help – you’re so, um, big?  I dunno but I feel so full.”

“Tight,” Zayn grunts, leaning on Liam, covering him.  “But fuck, Liam, you take me so well.  I could go harder – “

Liam sputters and thumps his forehead on the desk, trying not to reach between his legs to finish himself off.  He needs it to keep going.

“And faster,” Zayn adds, rougher.  “But if you keep – like, stop squeezing around me, babe, I’ll come.”

He moans and nods, shaking.  He wants that too.  He wants to know how amazing that is – someone _trembling_ because of him.  Someone losing themselves because of Liam.  He needs to know he’s breathtaking like Zayn is when he’s not even trying to think about him.

Liam finds a cool place on the desk to rest his cheek, smiling from the relief.  Zayn’s grinding down on that sensitive place inside of him and wrapping an arm around Liam’s waist, clever fingers finding his cock.

“Just relax,” Zayn whispers right into the shell of his ear, smirking.  “Don’t think about it.  It’s so much better when you come without thinking.  Just loosen up for me, babe.”

Liam does it so willingly.  He stops thinking, letting Zayn rock sharply, knocking him around the desk.  He wraps his lungs around this addictive smoke created between them.  He blinks his eyes open, finds Zayn’s hand slipping over the desk to cover his own.

Long fingers fit between the spaces of Liam’s and the contrast between gold and honey is deliberately intoxicating.  He stares at it, their hands, and forgets to breathe.

“So tight like this.”

He bites his lip softly, watching Zayn’s fingers squeeze around his.

“Relax, babe, relax.”

Zayn’s not heavy over him and that weight seems to float.  It dissipates without him thinking about it.

He’s just blank and dreamy and Zayn keeps breathing husky breathes into his ear while he pounds away.

“Y’can come now, babe, go ‘head – “

He doesn’t realize he is until he squeezes tightly around Zayn, almost pushes him out.  He’s shaking and floating.  He’s tasting blood on his tongue from his lip and spilling thickly onto the floor, all over Zayn’s fingers.

Every thrust afterwards feels raw but not unwanted.  It makes him sore but he’s splayed over the desk, too exhausted to flex back against Zayn.

He doesn’t have to.

Zayn bites into his shoulder, rubbing his slippery hand – the one drenched in Liam’s come – across Liam’s belly and jerks up into him when he finally comes.  He’s loud, whining, dragging Liam further and further into the clouds.

The world is fuzzy and lopsided but he keeps a tight hold of Zayn’s fingers as he tries to come down.  As he trembles over Liam’s back and stays buried deep, even as he goes soft.

“Should I have – “

Liam shakes his head.  He thinks he knows what Zayn’s asking and he’s too ashamed to admit he wanted that.  He wanted Zayn to come like that.

He keeps his eyes buried into his forearm, panting, refusing to move even though he needs to get away from Zayn.  He’s supposed to protect Zayn, not use him.

He’s not meant to use Zayn the way Zayn uses every person in his own life.  Just for an escape.  Or just to be someone else.

“Liam?”

“I should,” Liam pauses, scrunching his nose, something pricking behind his eyelids.  He breathes out a harsh breath and waits until Zayn pulls off of him.  “Should get you back to a safe room.  Get some agents to watch over your floor tonight.”

“But – “

Liam’s already realigning his strength to slide into his clothes.  He’s keeping his back to Zayn and trying to keep his shoulders stiff so Zayn can’t see or hear all of the quick breaths he’s taking.

He’s trying to hide the shaking and the shame.

The weight returns so quickly and he exhales harshly because – _what for?_   The tension is still there and he absolutely hates the space between him and Zayn so what was that stolen moment good for?

“Fine,” Zayn says, cold, the limit in his voice exposing the sad.  “Get me out of here.”

It’s not said with a mouth swollen from Liam’s kisses or nervous with a need or a drunken tongue licking away blood like back in that alley behind the club.

It’s just _there_ – between them.  A weight.

Liam rubs his fists against his eyes and hopes that, when he’s alone tonight, the nightmares aren’t soaked in black or white or charcoal flashes of Zayn’s face instead of Andy’s.

 

++

 

“Are you going soft on me, Cap?” Harry teases, ducking behind a pair of padded gloves, smirking.

There’s shiny sweat across his pinkish face, dimples bright and soft.  Stray strands of curls fall into his jeweled eyes from his messy ponytail, some ridiculously awkward band tying all of the hair up on top of Harry’s head.  He’s huffing like he’s exhausted but he won’t walk away.

Liam bites his own lip, throwing a few quick jabs that don’t fully connect.

Harry’s right – he’s not really trying today.

The gym is a loud funnel of agents warming up, working out, straining through weightlifting and having lazy boxing matches around the mats.  It’s stinks of sweat, vibrates with heat from all of the adrenaline and exertion and Liam wishes for that little crummy gym he would warm up in a few floors down.

“S’not like you, mate,” Harry grins, leaning away from another uppercut.  “You’re making it too easy.”

Liam huffs raggedly, sniffing.  He puts all of his weight on his back foot, jabbing with more intensity.

He still misses.

Sweat drips from his eyebrows and his shoulders tighten instantly.  He’s still swift, slipping away from Harry’s sloppy attacks but his vision goes a little hazy and his mind –

He’s spent two whole days watching intravenous lines and pain killers and nurses cleaning Niall’s wounds from a corner of the room, curled in a hard chair.  He’s listened, silently, to all of the doctors’ medical terms and eyed every SHIELD agent standing guard outside the door.  He’s tucked his phone in a bin somewhere to miss every single call and, when Louis stood outside of the room in the dark, he didn’t lecture him.

Liam shoved out of the chair, bought Louis a coffee, and closed the blinds so he couldn’t see Liam squeezing Niall’s hand in the shadows.

He keeps redefining the word _trust_ – just a five-letter word without a purpose now.  He keeps trying to remind himself why he strides into the SHIELD offices every morning – _protect him_.

Save him.

Liam’s only ever owned a cheap flannel his mum sewed into a cape for him one Halloween.  He’s never actually been much of a hero.  A role model.

A symbol of something great but he’s wanted to.  He’s wanted to prove himself to his dad, to his sisters.  To every scruffy kid who tossed him into metal bins, shoved his face into a brick wall, bloodied his nose and kicked dirt on his pressed chinos.

Now, regretfully, all he thinks about is being something great for some smug bastard in nice suits with a fond smile he hasn’t look at in nearly a week.

He ducks under a quick swing from Harry but a missed punch catches his right side and he stumbles back.

“Hawkeye’s got ‘im on the ropes!”

There’s a cackle from a few agents, a small crowd watching them now.

“Don’t fall for it, Captain.  He’s as soft as a newborn pup’s arse,” another agent roars, cheering with a grin.

“ _So_ ,” Harry smiles over the noise, still puffing out wheezing breaths, “Malik, huh?”

He doesn’t mean to falter at the name, at the _insinuation_ in Harry’s eyes or the way he wriggles his eyebrows but he trips a little on his feet and there’s a flash of Harry moving in but a foot clips Liam’s ankles and he crashes to the mat.

“C’mon Captain.  Get your head in the game, you git,” Ashton sighs.

“Some great hero,” Claum sneers.  “ _Britain’s finest_ they say.”

Liam stares up at the ceiling, hauling in quick breaths.  Bright white fluorescent lights blur his vision.  He hate this feeling, the being weighed down, but he settles into it for a moment with his loose singlet letting in pockets of air to cool the sweat across his skin.

He thumps his boxing gloves together and goes blind staring at the lights.

Harry stands over him, smiling enthusiastically, a hand outstretched.  It takes him a moment, sucking in quick fits of air, letting his muscles contract before relaxing, but he reaches back and lets Harry steady him to his feet.

When he’s calm – _calmer_ because there’s still a wire-tight coil around his spine – he frowns at Harry, whispering, “Who told you?  Widow?”

Harry laughs.  His voice is that usual raw, scratchy current like Zayn’s was after he pushed Liam’s cock all the way to the back of his throat and pulled off too quickly –

Liam hates the image and the way his cock stretches into a semi so quickly

– when he replies, “It’s no bother, Cap.  I like the bloke.  He’s got bullocks, mate.”

Liam chokes the sigh threatening his lips and shakes his head.  He draws back, fists raised and Harry flicks an eyebrow at him before grinning, nodding.  They spar around the mat, swift blows, even fists blocking each hit.  Their trainers squeak on the mats and sweat splatters off their skin when they toss a punch too hard.

“There’s nothing there,” Liam mumbles, the crowd around them scattering.  “Nothing at all.”

“Hey,” Harry frowns, eyebrows pulled together.  “Nothing wrong with it, right?  Mate – “

Liam draws in, throwing a few more punches.  He _needs_ Harry to shut up.

Harry doesn’t.

“We’ve all got our distractions,” he shrugs.  He backs off, flicking his eyes quickly to a corner of the room.  Towards Louis, stretching gracefully over a balance beam, tucking his hands behind himself as he flips backwards.  He lands on his feet.  It’s quite beautiful and he’s so steady.

He’s _calculated_ and Liam’s hated the way that word fits on his tongue for months now.

“It’s fair, innit?” Harry offers with a timid smile.

Liam doesn’t answer.  He drops his eyes and hopes the salty sweat in his eyes stings enough that he can focus on something else.

Harry thumps his shoulder lightly.  “He’s not a horrible person, right?” he smiles in that uniquely childlike way that Liam’s never been able to associate accurately with someone like Harry.

Someone he’s watched put an arrow through body after body with an offbeat smile on his face the entire time.

“I don’t trust him,” Liam bites, his teeth gnawing at his lip.

Harry snorts, pushing all of the leftover hair from his face.  “You don’t trust _anyone_ , Cap.  S’why I like you.”

Liam stares at him, lips twitching for a smile but someone else moves into his line of vision – _Louis_ – and he squares his shoulders instead.

“Mind if I take over,” Louis says more than asks because he’s already replacing Harry, fists at his side in front of Liam.

Harry raises his eyebrows like he’s questioning Liam but Liam ignores him.  He keeps his eyes steady on Louis.  The dead space between them an invitation to be filled.

“Okay,” Harry sings, tugging off his gloves.  “Be gentle with him.”

“I’ll consider it,” Liam sighs, tugging off his singlet.

Harry snickers under his breath.  “Wasn’t talking about you, Captain.”

He’s ready for Louis’ first attack – a quick foot in the air, smacking against his forearm.  It’s typical Tomlinson.  He doesn’t fight fair.  He doesn’t live by rules.  He’s an ambush but Liam is a _blitzkrieg_ and this large square of a gym still isn’t big enough for their fists.

They fight _hard_ – jabs to the shoulder, a foot aiming for a gut.  Liam keeps his feet dug into the mat, knocking Louis back each time.  Louis uses the space like a cage, dancing around Liam, keeping it close.

He huffs while Louis grunts.  Fingers twist around his wrist to stop a punch and Louis climbs up Liam’s thigh with a foot, trying to wrap strong legs around his neck.  Liam shakes him off, stumbles but he’s _right there_ – digging a fist into Louis’ next kick.

Louis vaults off of him, shoves him back.

“You want to know about Moscow?” he hisses when Harry isn’t nearby, when he’s coming at Liam again.  “Did what I had to do, mate.  It was a suicide run.”

Liam scowls, panting.  He raises his arms to block Louis’ bare knuckles.

Louis eases back, brushing stray fringe from his eyes.  “It was a setup.  Some shitty black ops mission that was s’pposed to be an easy job but I knew better.”

His elbow knocks Liam’s oncoming fist down.  He slips back, vaulting back with no hands.  On his feet, like a cat, frowning.

Louis licks his lips before dropping his chin.  “He _is_ – Harry was the one thing keeping me from abandoning the whole team.  Him and his stupid belief that he was doing something brilliant for this shit world.  I f _ell_ for – “ Louis pauses like the words didn’t mean to fumble past his lips.

He flinches, looks down.  “I did what I had’ta do.”

Liam freezes with lowered fists.  He huffs in a shallow breath.  “You – “

Louis blinks before swiping away the sweat on his forehead.  He half-turns away with tight shoulders.  “He would’ve died so I made the choice for the idiot,” he murmurs and Liam watches all of the tension go slack over his muscles.  “Made sure he never got close enough to that building.  Put a slug in his torso, mate.”

There’s a rush of air from Louis’ lungs.  His eyes flutter shut before he whispers, “Did what I had to do for ‘im.”

He watches the tense muscles in Louis’ shoulder give a little.  The sterile light above shines off his sweat and makes his eyes look glow in the dark.  Louis is giving stealth looks across the gym and Liam knows he’s staring at Harry.

He knows there’s a hint of regret in that scowl he’s wearing.

“I fucking put a bullet in my own partner,” Louis hisses, turning back to Liam.  “He’s a _mission_ , Payne.  When he becomes something more – “

It’s like the words freeze at the back of Louis’ throat and Liam’s chest heaves with anticipation because Louis is so close.  He’s two-thirds cross with Liam but there’s something else there too.

“You’ve gotta decide whether to take orders from your superior,” he sighs, his voice softer with a sharp finger jabbing at the center of Liam’s chest, “or listen to this right here.”

Liam glares down at that finger, wishes it didn’t shove so roughly at his sternum or that it didn’t feel like it was connected to something greater.  Something massive.

For a spare moment, Liam wishes there was a huge plate of metal there to protect his heart.

In his peripheral, he can see a few agents nearby – Calum, Ashton, Michael.  There’s scratchy whispers, hard eyes watching them, a scoff that Liam wants to interpret but his eyes divert back to Louis.

He stares at Louis walking away, shoulders slumped and a curve to his spine and just a hint of his confidence left behind.  He nudges by Harry, slipping into the shadows of the hall without saying a word.

Liam palms the nape of his neck and sighs shallowly.  He struggles to remember why his whole life has been nothing but fight, fight, fight.

 

++

 

The damp, cold locker room is mostly empty when Liam feels a shadow standing over him.

He blinks up at a familiar smile, a file shoved at him, and Eleanor tapping a patient boot against the cold tile floor.

Liam cocks an eyebrow at her.  “You realize this is the lads’ locker room, Calder?”

She huffs, feigning irritation, shaking the file at him.  “Despite what the arseholes here think, Liam, I’ve seen a willy or two in my lifetime,” she groans but it’s only slightly self-depredating.  “Plus my flat gets free porn thanks to Horan.”

Liam leans back, a fluffy towel hanging off his shoulders, a wide grin on his lips.  “Eleanor?”

“Oh shut it,” she mumbles, softly kicking his bare ankle.  “You’ve got a mission.”

Liam frowns crookedly, narrowing his eyes at the folder.  He shakes his head.

“Not interested,” he mumbles.

She licks at her lips, sighing.  “It’s not much of a choice.”

He thinks he can hear her mutter _‘sorry’_ but the loud yelp of a few naked lads when they spot Eleanor echoes off the walls.  He snatches away the folder, lazily thumbing through some of the pages.  His hair is still mostly damp from the shower, dripping plops of water over the pages.

“Some sort of charity event in honor of Malik Industries’ efforts to help clean up London,” she shrugs, her black uniform stretching as she folds her arms.  “A bunch of people in smart suits, loads of money and champagne.  Naturally, Malik has to be there.  Keeping up appearances and things.”

Liam bites his lip.  He briefly stops on a collection of surveillance photos.  All of Zayn.  He hasn’t looked at him for too long, on purpose.

“I don’t want any – “

Eleanor groans, nudging his ankle again.  “Listen,” she starts, frustrated until he lifts his eyes.  “We _need_ you, Captain.  Malik needs to be there and Tomlinson – “

Liam can’t stop his nose from scrunching or the way his muscles flinch.

She spots it and shoots him an almost pitying look.  “Tomlinson,” she continues, softer, “needs a cover.  He needs to feed the last bit of information off of Winston.  It needs to look natural.  We’re trying to stop this, Captain.”

His shoulders tighten up around his neck and Liam leans his elbows on his knees to glare at some grainy picture of Winston, Louis whispering in his ear, a large, comforting hand on Louis’ spine.

Liam doesn’t trust –

“Think of it this way,” Eleanor offers with an encouraging lift to her lips, “It shouldn’t be much work keeping an eye on Malik.  He seems to have softened up to you, right?”

He tries not to wince or grimace or shout that he’s quite happy _not_ thinking about Zayn at all.

 

++

 

“Oi, don’t you look rather clever in your fancy clothes,” Louis smirks, leaning against a marble column while lazily holding a flute of champagne.

Liam makes a face, nervous hands pressing at the material of his Oxford and waistcoat.  His trousers are fit a little too tight, his tie suffocating him and Eleanor insisted on cuff links that catch the glare of the dimly lit lights in the ballroom.

“Shut it,” he grumbles, cheeks flushed pink.  He picks at a loose thread, barely lifting his eyes.

Louis hums, tipping his head back, biting his bottom lip.  “Prince Charming all dressed up,” he teases in a slim suit with thick product pulling his hair back, leaving it shiny and artificial, “where’s your Cinderella?”

“Lou.”

It’s Harry, fuzzy and grainy in their in-ear monitors.  There’s a soft warning in his already scratchy voice and Louis sighs incredulously, sipping loudly at his champagne.

“You look sharp, Captain.”

“Thanks,” Liam mumbles, still dragging the sweat from his palms over the suit.

“Quit being a charmer,” Louis huffs, his voice low and strained under the quiet silhouette of orchestra music in the background, “and keep your eyes open.  I need to know when my mark arrives.”

“Already here, Lou,” Harry crackles back.  “Six o’clock.  At the door with two birds on his arm and that snakebite smile you adore so much.”

“Arsehole,” Louis whispers, pressing his grin to his half-empty glass.  “Remember Madrid?”

“I ‘member too much tequila and half-naked tango lessons,” Harry giggles but it’s almost white noise.  “Loads of salt and body shots – “

“You little shit,” Louis moans with a wrinkled nose and too much blood in his cheeks.  “Are you quite finished?”

“He’s moving.  Better get to ‘im before all of these stuffy suits do.”

Louis lets out a put upon sigh but he’s already smiling, leaning off the column.  He looks like some Bond femme fatale – his suit hugging his skin, a loose smile, neat eyelashes framing seaglass eyes, stealing another drink from a passing hostess’ tray.

“So you in a few, Payno,” he smirks, gliding through the small crowd and meeting Ben with a flutter of eyelashes and an offered drink.

Liam shuffles to the side, swiping a large hand through his soft hair – he refused the product and extra hairspray Eleanor threatened to lather it in – before exhaling harshly.

He feels completely out of place.

The ballroom is a few floors too high in the tower.  There’s a gentle golden glow to the room, quiet candles and dimmed lights.  A small orchestra is sat by the bar, a dance floor littered with politicians and investors, women in posh cocktail dresses and broad-shouldered men in smart tuxedos.  Trays of liquor keep spilling from hand to hand and voices rattle cheap laughter like automatic rifles in the atmosphere.

Liam doesn’t recognize anyone and he keeps avoiding conversations to prevent anyone from noticing him.  He’s always been awful at blending in and he lacks Louis’ charm or Harry’s smile so he ducks into the shadows.

He chews his bottom lip, stares blankly away from everyone, and listens to the musicians repeat the same five songs over and over.  He keeps his head ducked while his heart speeds up from the nerves.

There’s a city of photographers outside of the lobby downstairs and a neat row of sleek cars in the car park and sweat on Liam’s temple at the thought of some headline screaming, in bold print, _‘Captain Britain looks daft at a black tie affair celebrating the city’s finest.’_

He laughs to himself, teeth kneading into his lip, because it’s just a reminder that he’s never fit in anywhere.

“Champagne, sir?” one of the hostesses offers, a silver tray raised with a single glass fizzing in the light.

Liam startles at her voice.  He presses calloused fingers to the nape of his neck while offering her an embarrassed smile, cheeks flushed and pushing at his eyes.

His lips part, sticky and dry, to answer but he doesn’t quite get the words out.

“He’s not much of a drinker.”

Liam props his hip and shoulder to a marble column and something ridiculously sugary fills his lungs when he looks up.

He’s never really fancied suits or the restrictive pull of a tuxedo but Liam has to admit, under his breath and deep in his chest, Zayn looks astonishing.  His dark hair is soft, practically product-free, a loose quiff almost like bedhair.  Those long lashes edge around eyes making them look like little lightning bolts of amber.  His teeth are gently picking at his bottom lip, a sweet pale red like he’s been licking at an ice lolly for hours.  He’s got his hands stuffed in the pockets of his neatly pressed trousers and a fitted black jacket making his shoulders look broader and the top button of his cotton shirt undone, a limp bowtie hanging from his collar.

“Or much of a talker either,” Zayn teases, lips quirking into that crooked grin of his.

“I don’t mind a good chat,” Liam quips.  He feels sheepish, pursing his lips to stop a smile.  “If the person is right, of course.”

Zayn looks impressed, amused.  He snorts and drags his heels to get a little closer.

“Can I get you a whisky, sir?  Neat?  Jack Daniels, correct?”

Zayn waves her off, still grinning at Liam.  “M’not drinking tonight,” he says and Liam thinks it’s more for _him_ than her but he doesn’t comment.  He sniffs and presses into the column, hoping to half-hide his expression in the shadows.

“But thank you,” Zayn adds, flicking his eyes over her.

She nods quickly, flushing a sunburn red before scurrying off with a shaky tray and the glass nearly tipping over.

“You look,” Zayn starts, dragging his eyes over Liam slowly with dark eyes, “uncomfortable.”

Liam exhales roughly, shoulders dropping and trembling hands wiping the sweat along the seam of his trousers.

“Obvious?” he wonders, tipping his head back.

Zayn’s jaw slacks a little with his leisure smile.  He gives a one-shouldered shrug, humming.  “A bit, mate,” he replies, his voice going deep.

The laugh that Liam hiccups bubbles out of his chest like freshly uncorked champagne.  It makes him feel dizzy, all of the blood rushing into his head.  He catches the soft echo of Zayn’s laugh and they rock on their heels in unison, letting the music fill all of their empty spaces.

“Do you dance?” Liam asks, jerking his head towards the still flooded dance space.

“No,” Zayn replies quickly, looking a little horrified with wide eyes.  He ducks his head, his chest expanding, looking up shyly through his eyelashes.  “Was that an offer?”

“No,” Liam says, sharp and swift.

Zayn tips his head up, humming while picking at his sleeve.  He bites softly along his full bottom lip and, carefully, shuffles a little closer.

There’s a loud silence between them, like the rip of wind on a winter morning.  They avoid each other’s eyes but keep finding little destinations to stare at instead – Liam’s fingers playing with his tie, Zayn’s lips between his teeth, Liam’s shuffling feet on the hardwood floor, Zayn’s nose twitching.

He smells like a fresh cigarette and spicy cologne and Liam almost misses that same scent on his skin.

Except he remembers Zayn isn’t the kind of person you miss.

“You’re hiding,” Liam remarks, watching the way Zayn keeps looking over his shoulder.

“Maybe,” Zayn shrugs.  “This place is too busy for me.”

Liam smirks but maneuvers enough that he’s shielding Zayn from most of the lighting.  He looks younger in Liam’s shadow, nothing but a clean shaven jaw and docile eyes.

“Sometimes,” Zayn mumbles, eyes on the ground, “I can’t stay for long at things like these.  I sort of, like, I hide away in my loft.”

Liam watches Zayn take in a deep breath.  His fingers itch to touch but he resists.

“Think it’s why my dad built it here in the tower.  Somewhere for me to hide off – “

“Like a Batcave,” Liam grins and his fingers edge just along Zayn’s cuff for a moment.

He pulls away when Zayn bites his lip while smiling.

“Used to be his office but – like, when I was younger and me mum made me wear a suit, I’d sneak upstairs and play with my toys under his desk,” he explains, rolling his shoulders to unfurl the tension.  He cocks his chin up and the lights slice over the sharp angle of his cheek.

“Sounds nice,” Liam whispers, shrugging.

Zayn nods, lips quirking again.

Liam’s certain he’s never seen Zayn’s smile this genuine and maybe he’s just a brilliant actor like Louis is.  Maybe he’s honestly coarse and thoughtless under this armor of tailored clothes and cigarettes.

He doesn’t have the time to consider it.

“I just like some time off to myself,” Zayn adds, leaning into the column now.

“I can go,” Liam offers.

Zayn’s cigarette-burnt fingers quickly wrap around Liam’s wrist, squeezing at the pulse point.  “No,” he mutters, his thumb sneaking under the sleeve.  “S’okay.  Like, I don’t mind.  Sometimes Bruce Wayne likes some company, y’know?”

Liam lifts a teasing eyebrow.  “You’re hardly Bruce Wayne.”

“Dick Grayson?”

Zayn sounds sheepish and nervous and Liam doesn’t know why it makes him push into Zayn’s touch but –

“Zayn?” Ms. Watson hums, clearing her throat softly.

A soft growl-groan slips past Zayn’s lips and his fingers uncurl so quickly.  Liam stammers back some, blinking at Ms. Watson.

She offers him a knowing grin and he flushes when she turns back to Zayn.

“Caroline,” he huffs, making a face.  “Having a bit of a moment.”

“Right,” she smirks, rolling her eyes, “but there’s a few gentlemen from the Japan division of the company wanting a chat.  And the prime minister would like a small word, plus the photos you promised the rep from _the Times_.”

Liam scrubs his fingers through his hair.  He shies into the shadows when Zayn shoves off the column but there’s insistent fingers at the hem of his waistcoat tugging until Liam turns his eyes back.

“Just gimme, like, ten minutes, okay?” Zayn asks – he _pleads_ with earnest eyes.

“I shouldn’t,” Liam stammers, easing back on his heels.  “I should probably – I can watch over you from over there.  Out of the way.  At a distance.”

“ _Liam_ ,” Zayn begs, his voice curled into a gentle baritone.  “Just ten minutes, yeah?”

The glint of the lights off the moon-sized face of Liam’s watch makes him frown.  He shouldn’t.  He _can’t_ but –

“After ten, I’ll be in the kitchen with the wait staff.  Louis can cover you,” he replies, ignoring Zayn’s frown.

He’s a soldier.  He has a mission and it’s not playing bodyguard to Zayn Malik.

“Alright,” Zayn agrees, turning on his heels to follow Ms. Watson into the flush of the crowd.

He watches as Ms. Watson fixes Zayn’s bowtie and dusts lint off of his jacket, a murmur of _‘quit being a bloody wanker’_ and a _‘and stop pouting’_ before she snickers, _‘Captain Britain, eh?  Quite the bloke he is – it’s ‘bout time you fancied someone respectable’_ loud enough that Zayn groans and sneaks further into the crowd with blush high on his cheeks.

Liam sniffs, rocks back into the hard surface of the column.  That tight knot in his stomach clenches around all of his organs and his blood goes an ember hot.  He feels weird and uncommonly flushed, slick hands dragging the sweat onto his clothes.

He doesn’t know why he’s started counting the seconds in his head instead of just walking away.

“Give him a chance.”

It’s Harry in his ear and Liam groans, shutting his eyes.

“Stay out of it, Styles,” he snaps lowly.

“He’s half-decent,” Harry replies.

Liam glances around, watches couples float onto the dance floor and listens to the uncorking of a few more bottles.

“Shouldn’t you be looking after Widow?”

Harry laughs coarsely.  “I can keep an eye on him and your _primary school flirting_ at the same time.”

“I’m not – “

“’Sides,” Harry interrupts and Liam can hear the stretch of Harry’s smile in his ears, “he’s been out-drinking Winston at the bar for the last ten minutes.  Lou keeps taking the piss at the faces Winston has been making.”

“Is that smart?” Liam wonders, looking around.

He finds Zayn, on accident, laughing at something someone whispers while beautiful women try to drag him towards the dance floor.

Liam glances away, sighing loudly.  Four minutes and forty-five seconds already.

“For Lou?  It’s brilliant,” Harry snorts.  “Plus he’s part – “

“Russian,” Liam says with Harry, smiling.  “Still not a proper approach.  Winston’s not an easy crack.”

Harry sighs softly and Liam looks over to the bar where Winston’s got a large hand cupping the back of Louis’ neck and Louis grinning into his next shot.  It’s some harmless dance – a little like fraternity brothers, a hint of something a bit more sexual.  It’s confusing and Liam wrinkles his brow while staring off to a corner of the room.

One that’s empty and he imagines Zayn hiding out there, a tiny boy in too big suits with shiny, slick hair, nervously trying to get away from all of this dead air.

He squeezes his eyes shut again, counting the seconds in his head.

“Does it bother you?” he asks, sudden and his words choked.  “The way he is?  The way he acts?”

There’s a pause like Harry is considering.  A soft cough in his ear before Harry replies, “You learn to live with it.  We’ve all got our ways of handling things, right?  Got my own dark past just like him so.”

Harry doesn’t elaborate and Liam’s half-tempted to ask for more but he doesn’t.  _Space_ and _distance_.  Its two things he things they all share, whether they say it or not.

Never let anyone get too close.

“Does it bother you,” Harry says in this cheeky voice that Liam hates, “that Malik might actually be into you, mate?”

Liam tugs out his in-ear instantly and thumps his skull into the column.  His breathing is a little scattered, fingers flexing in and out of a fist.

He thinks Styles has spent far too much time with Tomlinson.  He thinks Harry is ducked into a rafter somewhere, looking down at him, cackling into his fist at Liam’s flushed cheeks and the sweat shining off his brow and the way he can’t stand still now.

Zayn returns in eight minutes and twenty-six seconds with floppy hair and a careless smile.

“Hey,” he says, his voice coy with flushed cheeks and wrinkles in his suit from thoughtless hands.  “D’you wanna – like, do you want to get out of here?”

The orchestra is setting into its sixth play of the theme from _Titanic_ and Liam’s feeling anxious – antsy, ready to ditch off from the suit and the put upon smiles and the bubbling champagne.

Harry is mumbling in his in-ear, the noisy crackle near his neck.  He darts his eyes to Louis stumbling around with Winston and the crowd is getting thicker, louder.

His throat closes a little when he whispers, “Yeah?”

Zayn’s cheeks are rosy and his eyes are soft spilled champagne, his smile going fond before he replies, “Definitely.  I know a place”

“D’you?” Liam teases, half-leaning in.

Too close.  He’s letting Zayn in and it’s an absolute mistake.  He’s so daft.  He doesn’t pull back.

“Just to, like, chill?” Zayn offers.

His knuckles brush Liam’s in the in-between.

“Supposed to look after you,” Liam mumbles, his ears hot and pink from the weight of Zayn’s stare.

“You would be,” Zayn whispers, closer, the waft of ashy cigarettes and citrus soap lightening Liam’s senses.  “Just need to – I can’t stick around here, okay?  It’s too much.”

Liam nods, licking his lips.  He feels something tight wrench around his chest and –

He’s meant to protect him.

Zayn motions towards the lifts and Liam, with a stubborn expression and his fingers skimming the back of Zayn’s hand, follows him silently.

They hide in the shadows and Liam thinks of old comic books and a swollen lip from someone’s knuckles.

It’s oddly comforting and Zayn keeps looking over his shoulder to be sure Liam’s there.  To make sure Batman is still following him in the shadows, watching over him.

 

++

 

“Sir, you’re home.”

Zayn grins in the doorway of his loft, Liam pressed loosely behind him, their heat like a wavering flame on a bonfire at night.

He keeps his hands at his waist, even if his fingers twitch to run up Zayn’s sides.  There’s a gap where Zayn’s bum almost brushes his crotch and they’re lazy together, swaying a little under the darkness of the city’s lights.

“JARVIS – _lights_ ,” Zayn calls, kicking off his shoes at the door.

The main room springs to life with owlish lights, dim circles painted over the carpeting.  The blinds are still wide, the whole of the city flicking like it’s wrapped in fairy lights.

“Lower,” Zayn huffs, pushing at his cuffs, rolling his sleeves to his elbows.

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS replies and the room is washed in indulgent gold afterwards.  “Shall I suggest a proper wine for your guest?”

Liam watches Zayn flush in the middle of the room, pushing hair off of his forehead.

“Not necessary,” he waves, biting at his lip.  He looks up through his thick eyelashes, still very sheepish.  “I dunno if Mr. Payne is staying?”

It comes out as a question and Liam startles in the doorway.  His lips drop softly into a frown, fingers running over the back of his neck before he shrugs.  He steps out of his shoes and pads sock-covered feet into the room, knocking the door closed with a shoulder.

They meet in the middle of the carpet, swaying again, never touching.  Just small looks, nervous smiles from Zayn and a harden mouth from Liam.

He’s not allowed to enjoy this.  He’s not meant to stare at Zayn’s mouth for so long.

Quiet music shifts into the loft, something he’s never heard but it’s soft and appealing.

“JARVIS,” Zayn whines, rolling his eyes.

“Sir, a proper selection of music helps to calm the nerves and slow the endorphins,” JARVS replies.  “Based on your current blood pressure levels – “

Zayn groans, ducks his head until the bridge of his nose rests on the round of Liam’s shoulder.  “JARVIS,” he squeaks.

“ – I deduce your heart rate to be on levels unhealthy for your weight class.”

Liam laughs into Zayn’s hair and, unconsciously, a sweaty hand rests low on Zayn’s spine.

“Captain Britain’s heart rate is elevated as well, sir,” JARVIS adds.

Liam blushes and almost stumbles back when Zayn sneaks a hand between them to press against Liam’s chest.  He winces, looking up at the ceiling and tries to calm the maddening loud thump of his heart.

He’s certain Zayn notices it too.

“He’s got your sense of humor, mate,” Liam mumbles, finally exhaling when Zayn lifts his head.

His eyes drag over Liam’s mouth, his own tongue wetting his lips.

“Didn’t program him with a personality.”

“Yeah, well,” Liam shrugs.  He takes a small step back, _distance and space_ he thinks.

His teeth fumble with his lip and he watches Zayn do the same, the cool smudged shadows of the room smoothing over them.

Zayn tugs at his bowtie, fingers shaking.  He looks frustrated, mumbling into his bottom lip.  He raises his brow, looks up through his eyelashes at Liam.

“Help me?”

Liam sighs, refusing to fix a grin to his lips.  He edges closer and their bodies almost fit together as he pulls at the bowtie.  It falls lazily apart under his strong fingers, Zayn’s hands on Liam’s waist to keep him steady.

“M’not one of your conquests, Malik,” Liam says, his tone low and stern.  He easily pops open the top button of Zayn’s shirt, watches his throat bob from the release.

“Good thing I shagged an intern earlier,” Zayn laughs, wriggling his eyebrows.  “Quite a nice lad too.”

They’re frozen, Liam’s hands in Zayn’s collar and warm thumbs pressing into Liam’s hips.  He doesn’t mean to scowl – no, he doesn’t mean to _frown_.  He doesn’t mean to narrow his eyes for a moment.  He doesn’t mean to drop them when Zayn looks up and he doesn’t mean to sew his heart into the expensive sleeve of his shirt but –

“It was a joke,” Zayn grins, the corners of his mouth soft.

Liam sucks in a sharp breath, holds it in his chest.

“But at least,” Zayn whispers, ducking his head to sneak into Liam’s vision, “I know you care.”

Liam lets the breath out.  He stays close even though he wants to stomp away.  He wants to shove Zayn into a wall and let this frustration out.  This ache that feels like shattered glass all over his bones.  But this sweet melting butterscotch leaking into his system is unshakeable.  It leaves him limp and hard all at once.

He can’t run from it so he fists his fingers into Zayn’s collar and pulls him forward.  He slots his lips against Zayn’s and kicks that unsure feeling into a corner of the room.

It’s not the kind of kiss meant to bruise.  It’s the sort of kiss that wears you down – knocks all of the armor off.  It stings like an ember flicking off the wood onto your skin.  It soothes like a hug or a bandage or a _‘you’re amazing’_ that comes after accomplishing something small.

Zayn bites at his bottom lip and Liam presses his fingers into the thick hair on the back of Zayn’s head to keep him from moving away.  He sways and Zayn keeps him center.  He licks a tongue into Liam’s mouth and keeps him from falling or floating away.

An _anchor_.

Lazy, fond kisses that Liam’s never shared with anyone.

Zayn tugs Liam’s tie loose and spreads his fingers over the nape of Liam’s neck, angling his head.  Soft noises from their lips smacking, their own voices grinded into quiet moans, blend with the music.  Liam can feel all of Zayn’s eyelashes every time they flutter against his cheek and he sucks happily along Zayn’s thick bottom lip, sighing with Zayn’s next exhale.

“Bedroom?” Zayn offers, stretching his arm to rub at Liam’s back.

He doesn’t hesitate or pull back with an embarrassingly nervous look.  He knocks their foreheads together, staring down at Zayn’s swollen lips.

“C’mon,” he scratches out, tugging the hem of Zayn’s shirt from his trousers.  “Want you to show me something.”

“Show you?”

Liam’s laugh sticks to the back of his throat.  His fumbling hands are working at Zayn’s shirt.  He catches Zayn’s mouth before he can talk again and stumbles backwards towards the cold, dark bedroom.

 

++

 

The purple moon outside of the loft soothes pretty shadows all over the bedroom.  Stuttered flashes from the city outside fill in small spaces but they never stay long.  Liam’s eyes never watch them long enough for any of it to matter.

“Show me,” he whispers, his voice smoky, scratchy.  “Show me the real you.”

He’s leaning lazily forward in some fancy longue chair in a corner of the bedroom.  His shirt is unbuttoned, spread open and soft over his skin.  His belt is flicked off, trousers lazily undone on his hips.  His mouth, his fat bottom lip, is still swollen from Zayn’s kisses.  There’s a rawness to his skin from Zayn’s evening stubble and his fingers are on his knees, squeezing and still tingling from helping Zayn out of his clothes.

Zayn blinks at him in the dark, biting his bottom lip into a bruising red.

He looks vulnerable on top of the expensive linen.  The smudged taupe from the night spreads all over his bare skin.  It makes all of the ink over him stand out and the harmless glow in the center of his chest outlines his face in a bluish halo.

His legs are cocked and spread, a hand low on his belly with fingers brushing over rough dark hair around his cock.  His spare hand strokes lazily at his half-hard cock and his hooded eyes look down at the precome at the slit before lifting up towards Liam.

“You sure you don’t want to join – “

Liam shakes his head quickly, leaning back.  He lets out a quiet exhale, rubbing his palms along his trousers to get the sweat off.

“I’m good,” he stutters, losing some of his arrogance.  Zayn smiles and Liam huffs.  “Just want to – I just want to _see you_.  I want to see the lad they don’t see.”

Zayn swallows while his thumb circles around the head.

“I want you,” Liam whispers with fingers on the nape of his neck.  “The bloke with a hole in his chest and the one that spells his name properly with an _‘I’_ – like, _you_ , okay?”

Zayn groans, nodding.  His loose fist tightens around the shaft, toes wiggling.  He cocks his head back against the headboard with bits of fringe slipping into his eyes.

“Yeah,” Liam drags out, sweat prickling his temple.

There’s a hum in Zayn’s chest, the arc reactor standing out against all of the tattoos and neatly smooth gold skin.  Zayn drags a hand into his hair, thumbing under the crown, his balls tightening up.

“Y’can go slow,” Liam suggests, spreading his own legs.  “Or faster.  Just want you – show me how you’d do it if I wasn’t here.”

A slow, thick moan passes Zayn’s lips.  He squeezes again, long fingers flexing over taut skin.  He chews at a thumbnail, shy and vulnerable like blown glass.  Fingers skim down his neck and Liam watches all of the muscles shift there.

Liam drops a curious hand into his lap, squeezes his hardening cock through his trousers.  Zayn blurts out a noise and drags his hand a little quicker.

“Like that?” Liam asks, nervous.

Zayn gasps and kicks his legs further apart.  There’s a whimper caught there, lodged in his throat, his chest heaving.

Liam grins and nods.  He gives himself another careful squeeze, pressing down until his cock is outlined by the nice material of his trousers.  He can feel the fabric go wet, watches it go darker in the shadows.

A soft groan in the dark draws Liam’s eyes up.  He drags them over the thick hair chasing from Zayn’s navel into the coarse hairs below.  The massive heart inked into his hip shifts when Zayn’s abdominals flex.  The blue pulse at the center of his chest moves like a spotlight all over the room and Zayn’s biting crudely at his bottom lip as he moves his hand faster.

He thinks he likes the wet slap of Zayn’s hand all over his cock.  He likes the way Zayn’s fingers are shiny all over the knuckles from the precome.  All of these breathy, deep moans keep filtering through Zayn’s parted lips and they echo over the glass.

Zayn digs his heels into the sheets and thrusts up into his hand.  It’s _breathtaking_ – the way Zayn works himself into his own hand, the fits of precome slicking down his fingers, the tight grip of his jaw even when he’s moaning, the rise and fall of his chest, half-lidded lazy eyes watching Liam.

There’s a woody aroma to the room, a nice mixture of boyish scent and clean soap and _Zayn_.  It’s distracting but Zayn’s loud moans drag in his ears and he fixes his eyes on the hand blurring between Zayn’s legs.

Liam swallows, leaning back.  His hand is absently stroking himself and Zayn’s eyes won’t tear away.  He’s studying Liam’s thumb outlining the head and his fingers tensing and relaxing along the covered shaft.

“Keep going,” Liam mutters and Zayn moans, deep and thick in his chest.

He groans, hips rotating, his cock working stiffly between loose fingers.  The sounds start to shiver out of him, his thumb playing leisurely around the head.

  1.   His breathy moans echo and ache all over.  Zayn’s hand slows down for a moment, his breath rattled, the wet slap of his cock in his hand still there.



His free hand explores his ribs, thumbs closer to a nipple.  A soft tug, a bitten groan that blows a soft breath over the coal growing in Liam’s chest.  Zayn squeezes a nipple and shivers when he skims fingers over the bruised skin.  He sucks in a quick breath and exhales a ragged moan.

Liam watches the hazy moon outline Zayn’s face when his head tips back and his hand speeds up.  His feet shift on the sheets while his fingers tickle at the head of his dick.  Rough, shuddering moans is all he can hear.

Just a constant _‘oh’_ on a loop in his head.

Each breath starts to catch, thick and caramel-like in Zayn’s throat.  His hips twitch, his hand pounding at the hard flesh.

Liam blinks at him, sweat falling like rain down his chest, matting in the soft hair.  He spreads out in the chair and stares.  His tongue licks out and Zayn sounds _filthy_ with his next moan.

He sounds embarrassed and turned on and like a beautiful tenor over a dirty bassline.

Zayn is flushed, sweaty, hair in his eyes.  His jaw keeps stretching for the noises thrumming from him.  Liam can almost taste his arousal in his throat, his mouth watering at the thick spurts of precome leaking from Zayn’s cock.  He wants _more_.

“Faster,” he encourages, stroking the inside of his thighs rather than his straining cock.

The fit of his trousers makes it uncomfortable, the material tented but still restrained.  He enjoys the pressure.  He craves the restraint from slipping his hand under the waistband to toss off to the sight of Zayn getting himself off.

Moonlight skims over olive skin and darker tattoos.  Zayn pulls off a little, letting his cock slap against his stomach.  Flicks of precome shine over his strained stomach muscles and Liam’s fascinated at how much different Zayn’s dick is from his own – the thick vein on the underside, no extra foreskin, the head almost purple from the pressure, the shaft darker.

“C’mon,” he rasps.  “Don’t stop – wanna see you.  C’mon, babe.  Let me see how hard you get.”

Zayn whimpers out a weak groan, fingers reaching for his cock again.  His chest heaves with anticipation.

“Lemme see how _loud_ you are.”

Another achy moan knocks into the room.  He’s slipping into a rough vibrato, each groan ascending.  He blows out hot breaths and trembles when his fingers curl around the shaft.

There’s no preamble about his movements.  His hand starts into a quick rhythm, every breathy moan making Liam tense in the chair.

Zayn’s legs pull up and there’s just enough errant moonlight to catch a glimpse of his clenching hole.  Precome bubbles out of the slit of his dick and it’s swiped away by a lazy thumb.  His breaths are coming faster and his moans drop in texture but not sound.

He slips a hand down, knuckles going white, fingers curling to brush over his hole.

“ _Oh_ ,” Zayn moans.  It’s aroused and tender, a huff of air before he groans, “Oh _shit_.”

Liam startles and watches dry fingers try to press into his hole.

He’s close.  His balls tighten up, thighs trembling now, teeth biting his fat bottom lip over and over but the noises are rattling in the room.  The mix of his keening moans and his hand wet with precome creating a smacking noise and his feet rustling over the sheets.

He can’t help himself.  All of the stuttered trembling groans make the embers under his skin light up.  He crawls out of the chair, up the sheets, just between Zayn’s legs.

Still not close enough but his shaking fingers rub at Zayn’s bare ankle and he licks his lips with anticipation.

Zayn stares at him through lidded eyes.  He’s huffing for air but still shaking out moans.  His cheeks puff with each sound and his hand goes faster, _harder_.  His hips work up into it and his eyes plead with Liam.

“I want to see,” Liam says firmly, squeezes rough fingers into Zayn’s skin.

He jolts a little on the sheets but keeps wanking.

“C’mon, Zayn,” Liam whispers, dragging his knees on the sheets to push in closer.  “Let me in,” he adds, eyeing the fingers Zayn keeps prodding at his hole, “I wanna see you.  All of you.”

Long fingers grip around the soaked head and Zayn trembles.  He can’t slow his breathing or the little gasps out of his mouth, eyes tipping down before flicking back up to Liam.

It’s a warning.  It’s a plea through muttered gasps.

Liam leans in, batting his eyelashes, a tongue working over already wet lips.  Zayn shifts up, stares down at Liam and all of his limbs shake.  His stomach muscles tense and he groans, “Oh _shit_.  _Ah_.  Oh fuck.”

Swollen lips catch around the head when Zayn starts to come.  It pulses while Liam flicks his tongue out to taste.  He slips it between Zayn’s fingers, fits it into the slit while Zayn spills messily over his mouth, his cheek, his chin.

A trembling hand palms at the back of Liam’s neck, holding him there.  He slurps to keep all of the come from slipping down Zayn’s knuckles, mouths sloppily around the head.  He can hear Zayn’s ragged pants and loves the way Zayn’s thighs shake around his head.

“Shit.  Liam,” Zayn moans, head tipped back.  “ _Shit_.”

Liam gasps with Zayn’s taste on his tongue.  He swallows, the thick flavor salty and unexpected and dizzying.

His hand works his trousers open and Zayn’s right there, dragging a crude hand in the small gap between waistband and skin and fumbling his mouth over Liam’s.

He licks the flavor off of Liam’s tongue, groans, works the foreskin over the head like an extra hand.

Liam squeezes at Zayn’s shoulder, thrusting into the soft palm offered, biting down on a bruised bottom lip.

“Oh shit, babe,” Zayn moans in that same sticky baritone he shuddered through seconds ago.  “Come for me.”

It’s a silly line.  It’s not the least bit arousing or hypnotic but Liam thinks it’s the thick drag of Zayn’s voice, his heavy accent, the way he follows the words by licking the wet come from Liam’s jaw that makes him tremble and tumble into an orgasm.

He shakes against Zayn, a hot cheek pressed into the crook of Zayn’s neck, and lets Zayn squeeze the wet come from his dick.  It’s messy and sticky in Liam’s pants but Zayn keeps moving his hand.  It keeps squeezing, soaking the material, spreading the come across Liam’s skin.

They stumble together down into the sheets, on their sides, facing each other.  Zayn’s hand is still thumbing his softening cock and his trousers are damp with his come.  They’re breathless and lazy for kisses and Liam feels like a _daydream_ –

He realizes, unconsciously, he hasn’t really dreamt anywhere but right next to Zayn.

 

++

 

He’s floating.

It’s a dream, he knows, with perfectly neon colors and haziness and such a lack of grainy black and white images that he feels weightless.  Like stumbling on the clouds.  Like trying to feel the gossamer between his fingers.  He doesn’t think there’s anything like it and he’s trying to hold tightly to it but –

There’s a rattle somewhere in the distance.  A sharp noise that startles him awake and into an abyss of navy blues and smooth purple.

Into a bedroom that’s not his with a too soft bed – _like falling between the clouds_ , he thinks – and sheets that smell like sweat and sex.

Another noise, louder, muttered curses.

It’s Zayn’s bedroom and his sheets and his scent sticking to Liam’s skin.  He breathes it in, swallows the sweet-sour taste of Zayn’s come still on his tongue, sinks down into the madness for a moment before –

Liam shakes from the daydream because there’s noises and voices and Zayn’s not next to him.  Zayn isn’t within the reach of his fingertips.

One stupid mission: _keep Zayn safe_.

Liam jumps from the bed, tiptoes around the room with a sudden rush of adrenaline leaking like serotonin into his blood.  His mouth feels like cotton and he’s still trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.  He stupidly forgot his shield in the lounge area, his fingers wriggling for its grip.

He sneaks out of the bedroom, staying close to the walls, leaning into the shadows rather than into the glow from the other room.  He’s resigned to shallow breaths to stay quiet but there’s a roar underneath his skin and a numbness in his fingertips because –

Zayn might slip away.

His heart stops and then skips into an erratic rhythm when he stumbles into the main room.

Zayn is sprawled over the floor with messy hair, glasses on his nose, his unbuttoned shirt from the evening, cartoonish boxers too big for him and dismantled iron armor all around him.  There’s soft music in the background while Zayn fiddles with a piece of armor.

“Shit,” Zayn mumbles, scratching at his temple, his head hanging low.

“What is this?”

Zayn startles.  He drops a piece of the armor and it thuds and rolls over the carpet.  There’s lazy sketches Liam recognizes all around, blueprints and doodles and a folder with bold red ink across it – _Avengers Initiative_.

Liam arches an eyebrow and Zayn looks up with a sheepish smile, petting the back of his neck.

“JARVIS,” Zayn groans, knocking some of the armor across the carpet.

“Sir, it would seem Captain Britain is now awake.”

Zayn sighs out a small chuckle, nodding.  “Correct.  You were s’pposed to warn me _before_ he got up, ‘member?”

“I recall, sir, that you – “

A stiff groan slips past Zayn’s lips, the noise thumping louder than the music and the computerized voice.

“Bit late for a chat, JARVIS, innit?” Zayn grins, hair falling in the way of his glasses.  “I’ve got it, thanks.”

“As you wish, sir,” JARVIS replies.

Liam drags a hand through his hair with loose joggers hanging off his bare hips.  He sniffs, wrinkling his eyebrows when Zayn reaches for crinkly blueprints.

“What are you – are you _building_ something?” Liam wonders.

Zayn snorts, eyes still looking down.  “Electrical engineer, babe.  Massive intellect.”

Liam ignores the wavering arrogance in Zayn’s voice to admire the goofy smile spread over his lips.

“Just an idea or summat.  Been working on it for ages, though.”

Liam staggers further into the room, the wash of light overhead not reaching to all of the shadows across the kitchen and near the windows.  Just over Zayn, like a spotlight, a fuzzy halo.  He flops down next to him, their knees knocking, Liam yawning.

“Is it like,” Liam pauses, feeling daft.  “An armor?”

“A _suit_ ,” Zayn shrugs, biting over his lip.  “An iron suit.  Complex alloys.  Propulsion system.  Fully functional weaponry.  A guidance system.”

“Don’t forget the repulsor rays, sir,” JARVIS adds.

Zayn laughs under his breath.  He blinks up, cocking his head to the side when Liam shoots him a confused look.

“Sort of like lasers,” he explains, dragging a finger over the blueprints to show Liam all of the equations and drawings.  “Like in _Star Wars_?”

“Haven’t seen it,” Liam mumbles and his cheeks burn a solid pink when Zayn laughs.

“Of course not.”

Liam nudges an elbow to Zayn’s rib.  His eyes crinkle up with his shy smile when Zayn doesn’t scoot away or retaliate.

He doesn’t recognize the soft music in the room but he enjoys the mellow float of _‘and they say she’s in the class A team, stuck in her daydream’_ in this star orbiting the London sky.

“It’s like,” Zayn hums, biting around his words and mouth, “Like a way for me to fight back, yeah?  Been thinkin’ of it since Dubai.  Since I was stuck without a way to fight.”

He looks nervous and anxious because his words aren’t coming out properly but Liam doesn’t need them to.

He understands.  He gets it.  He knows about pipe dreams and he remembers just wanting to _fight back_.  Wanting to be brave enough and strong enough to show the world the size of his heart.

Zayn’s is strapped behind metal and palladium but Liam thinks, even with his eyes closed, he can see the bluish shine when it beats strongly behind all of the iron.

He sneaks a hand underneath Zayn’s on the blueprints, their movements in unison, tracing all of the complex lines he’ll never comprehend.  But he knows the taste of what Zayn wants –

_Fight, fight, fight._

“You can’t,” Liam sighs, ducking his head.  “The Avengers.  It’s not for you.  It’s not – you _can’t_.”

“I can.”

There’s no an argument in Zayn’s voice.  Just a confidence.  A slow build into a climax.  A _need_ like the one Liam had in his lungs before the serum.

“But if you get hurt – “

The knuckle of Zayn’s index finger catches under Liam’s chin, dragging on the unshaven scruff.  Liam follows the momentum and finds Zayn’s eyes under the heavy light.

“Been hurt before,” Zayn says, his smile crooked.  He drags his eyes to the arc reactor and Liam’s fingers pulse to touch.  He fits them between Zayn’s instead.  “S’nothing new for me, Li.  But at least now I can _give_ as much as they _take_.”

His lungs fill with oxygen stained in Zayn’s scent.  His tongue feels heavy in his mouth and Zayn tilts his head just enough that Liam could lean in.  He could kiss him.  He could shut Zayn up with his mouth and a curious tongue and unfamiliar music in the background of this smoky night.

He thinks Zayn spots the hesitation.  His hand lowers and his thick bottom lip – the one Liam wants to bite at, suck on, kiss swollen – fits between his teeth when he turns his head away from Liam.

Zayn fills their space with a coldness he stole from Liam’s reluctance.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Zayn whispers.

Liam smiles into the bare skin of his shoulder.  “It’s alright.  Don’t really sleep well.  Not since – “

Zayn nods, a sadder smile over his lips.  “I know.  I don’t sleep as much either.”

Their arms brush and their feet keep time with the music and Liam feels – _safe_.

He curls an arm behind Zayn, his forearm brushing the soft cotton of Zayn’s Oxford.  He hooks a chin over Zayn’s shoulder and breathes with him.  He watches Zayn turn senseless doodles into a weapon.

Into an iron safety blanket.

Zayn lifts his head some and smiles at Liam.  His sharp cheekbones are edged in pink and his soft hair keeps getting in his eyes.

“I do sleep,” Zayn admits in a raspy voice, “I sleep better when you’re around.  With _you_ , I guess.”

Something else fits into their space and Liam feels too weak to push it away.

“I sleep better with you,” Zayn repeats, his voice strong but not arrogant.

It sounds like _Zain_ and Liam memorizes the thick of his accent and the way his smile makes his words slur together like this.

He yawns quietly, nuzzling his nose to the collar of Zayn’s shirt.  His arm links around Zayn’s back, fingers on his hip.  He rests his temple to Zayn’s shoulder and starts to _float_.

“I hate your bed,” he says around another yawn.  He smiles when Zayn nudges him with an elbow and he doesn’t feel the need to add _‘because it makes me feel at home’_ even though his mouth forms the words in this silence.

A pink tongue is caught in-between white teeth, Zayn’s brow wrinkled in concentration.  His glasses are hanging off the edge of his nose, fingers moving like fluid over various pieces of armor.  He’s careful not to nudge Liam away as he moves and, in their silence, twists awkwardly to kiss the tip of Liam’s nose.

Liam buries one more yawn into Zayn’s neck but refuses to crawl back to Zayn’s bed.

He stays huddled around Zayn, keeping him safe.  It’s his mission.  An order.

When he closes his eyes, halfway to sleep, everything remains in color.

 

++

 

There’s a buzz in his ears.  A sledgehammer in his head.  Steady, constant, over and over.  An alarm.

A warning.

The daylight picks at his eyelids, heavy and full from the window in Zayn’s bedroom.  The thudding in his head refuses to stop – louder, louder.  He buries his head in a pillow while a head of dark hair burrows under his elbow, a nose tickling his armpit.

“Sir.  _Sir_.”

“Christ, JARVIS, take a fucking _day off_ ,” Zayn grumbles from under Liam.

Liam turns his head a little, the tip of his nose brushing Zayn’s forehead, a pair of legs twining around his thigh under the sheets.

“But sir, there are eight SHIELD agents in the lobby.  There’s a group of twelve unknown people approaching the main entrance, heavily armored.  Director Higgins has been trying to reach your mobile and someone has just hacked into the company’s mainframe.”

Liam jolts from their tangle of limbs.  The toxic rush of adrenaline slips into his blood immediately, coating everything like thick ink.  He rolls out of the bed, knocking Zayn back and scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Shit,” Zayn hisses, crawling from the sheets.  “JARVIS, what the _fuck_ – “

“Clothes,” Liam barks, yanking on his rumpled jeans, tearing at the sheets for a shirt.  “Now Malik.”

Zayn scrambles, stumbling through the room for anything to slip into.

“How long JARVIS?” Liam asks, his heart like a swinging hammer.  It’s beating the marrow from his ribs.

“Three minutes, Mr. Payne,” JARVIS replies.

“Fuck,” Zayn huffs, the collar of his Henley catching around his nose.  “The emergency exits?”

“Too risky,” Liam says, shaking his head, his mind somewhere between _freefall_ and _terminal velocity_.

Zayn bites down on his lip, tugs on a pair of scuffed combat boots.  “Fuck,” he mumbles again, swallowing too loudly.  He snaps a thick bracelet around his inked wrist – some scrap piece of technology Liam remembers him toying with last night, in the haze of a daydream, his head snuggled to Zayn’s shoulder.

Liam does everything not to remember the softness of Zayn’s face in the yellowy light overhead or the constant slip of long fingers up Liam’s spine to help him lull back to sleep.

“Get the _Mark I_ ready, JARVIS,” Zayn chokes out like he’s trying to gather his courage.

“Sir, the _Mark I_ has not been fully tested for – “

“Just fucking _do it_ ,” Zayn snaps with a shaking hand dragging through his scattered, inky hair.

“Yes sir.”

“Are the lifts clear?” Liam puffs out, vaulting over the bed.  He wraps tight fingers around Zayn’s wrist, ignoring the wide-eyed look Zayn gives him to drag them both out of the bedroom.

“Currently clear, Mr. Payne,” JARVIS answers.  “But the group outside is growing and it would seem we have intruders on a few of the upper floors.”

“They’re trying to block us in,” Liam grunts, still tugging Zayn behind him as he moves for the door.  He swipes up his shield, sweat already dampening the front of his shirt, stitching down his brow like warm dew.

“What the fuck are we s’pposed – “

“Just stay _close_ ,” Liam interrupts, slamming a fist into the lift keypad.  “JARVIS, do you have a location on Styles or Tomlinson?”

“Mr. Styles is in the lobby with the other SHIELD agents, sir,” JARVIS says.  “No sign of Mr. Tomlinson, sir.”

“ _Liam_.”

He can’t stop himself.  He turns quickly when the doors ping open.  His breath is rough and he’s trying to remember the layout of the building but _Zayn_ –

He’s trembling.  His bottom lip is shredded by his teeth, his hair manic and those wide eyes sink something uncomfortably cold into the pit of Liam’s stomach.

“Hey,” Liam whispers, moving in, wrapping strained arms around Zayn.  He flexes just enough that Zayn stumbles into him, pressing to his chest.  He walks them backwards into the lift, keeping their eyes level with each other.  “I’ve got you, okay?  Just – just stay with me, alright?  Close.”

Zayn nods sharply, teeth still wrecking his lip.

“Say it, Zayn,” Liam requests.  His breathing is still reckless and Zayn’s is loud in his ears.  “C’mon, say it for me.”

“ _Close_.”

Liam nods, shutting his eyes when the doors quickly jerk closed.  He carefully backs Zayn into a corner of the lift, steadying him against the wall.  He threads his arm into his shield and his muscles hesitate.

Turning away from Zayn is the hardest thing he’s had to do since Andy slipped from his fingers.

He counts all of the floors as they glide down to the lobby.  He replays all of the exits in his head – third floor offices, second floor fire exit, a backdoor down the narrow hall in the lobby.  He’s forgot his com and he wants to signal Styles to meet him halfway.  Maybe Tomlinson will have a car already?

His free fingers wiggle at his side.  He starts counting Zayn’s heavy breaths.  There’s an itch down his spine to turn, to shoot Zayn a lazy smile to calm him.  He could shove Zayn into the corner and kiss him until the lift stopped on the ground floor.  Just the hot pressure of his lips and those spare fingers digging into Zayn’s hip to remind him –

Liam takes in a deep breath and stares forward.  He needs to focus and Zayn is more of a distraction than a mission in this moment.

“Don’t leave my side,” he whispers, the lift jerking when they hit ground level.

“Liam,” Zayn stutters and Liam can feel him stumbling to get closer.

He squares his shoulders, straightens his spine, refuses to turn to face him.

“Just _don’t_ ,” he says, low, his voice going hard.

He’s a soldier.  He’s not a –

Zayn is nothing but an order.  A mission he can’t fail.

 

++

 

Eleanor is on the other side when the doors ping open.  She’s chewing her lip, a gun already cocked in both hands.

“Status check,” Liam huffs, stomping out of the lift.  He blinks over his shoulder.  He tries not to exhale the relief in his chest when Zayn is close on his heels.

“We intercepted a communication from Winston to Lloyd.  It came in early,” Eleanor says, moving in between Zayn and Liam.  He casually reaches back, twines thick fingers around Zayn’s bare wrist and Eleanor sneaks an eyebrow up at him that he intentionally ignores.

“They’re making a move.  Computer viruses into the system.  The place is almost surrounded and there’s a tactical squad inside the weapons division right now,” she continues.

A few agents are gathering the staff, pushing them into utility closets, unused offices to clear the lobby.

“They haven’t gotten through to Malik’s files yet,” Harry says, walking out of the shadows near a corner.  His bow is strung tight, his fingers twitching near a few arrows, his middle and ring finger already taped and anxious.

“They want him,” Eleanor mutters, dragging her eyes over Zayn.

Liam squeezes Zayn’s wrist, keeps a tense mouth as he looks over his shoulder.

Zayn blinks at him, his lip between his teeth again.  Liam smiles – it’s the only thing he knows to do.  He parts his lips, whispers _‘close’_ and waits for a small, stiff nod from Zayn before he turns back to Eleanor.

“We think we know who the leak at SHIELD is,” Eleanor sighs.

Liam squints his eyes.  He looks around the lobby quickly, his tongue between his teeth.

He looks at Harry.  “Where’s Tomlinson?”

Harry averts his eyes but Liam catches the half-frown on his lips.  It’s obvious.  Harry doesn’t have to answer him.

“I reckon once a spy, always a spy, right?” he huffs, sniffing to stop the irritable twitch at his mouth.

“Liam, it’s not what you think,” Eleanor says quickly but he waves her off, pulling Zayn a little closer.

“Alright, we need to hold them off in the lobby.  Get a command squad to that weapons division to shut them down.  Break their perimeter,” Liam demands, motioning for a few agents to stand guard at the main glass doors.  “Need a car and an exit for Malik.”

Eleanor steps forward, frowning.  “Liam – “

“I need a way out for him,” Liam barks, all of his veins filled with ice.  Frozen.  His first breath out of the cold.  There’s an ache he can’t stop from wobbling into his voice when he whispers, “ _I need him out_.”

“Too late, Cap,” Harry insists, raising his bow, drawing an arrow.

The flood of men strapped in all black, guns raised, heavy combat boots stomping over the clean marble floors of the lobby is immediate.  They form a rough line in front of the doors, shouting, a moving shadow taking form.  The cold crawls around him and he jerks Zayn behind him, his fist clenched into his shield.

 _Run_.  He thinks he can make it down a corridor, through a few empty corners, shove Zayn out a side exit.

He knows he’s too late.

She’s grinning when she steps through the sea of black.  Her giggle echoes through the nearly empty lobby, chunky hair half in her eyes with black rims around her eyes.  Her boots thump along the floor, a soft saunter to her movements.

“Well, well,” Cher smirks mockingly, clapping.  She stops short, feigning a pout.  “Boys, boys.  Get a looky at what we have here, yeah?”

Eleanor raises her gun on his right, Harry’s aiming an arrow to his left.  He can see a few agents already kneeling, barrels pointed and all he can think of is the shaking boy behind him.

The one still trying to swallow down a healthy dose of _courage_ when he shouldn’t have to.

“Now don’t be naughty,” Cher giggles.  She pulls a knife from her side, dragging a pink tongue across the blade with a wink.  “We just wanna have a bit of a chat with Mr. Malik.  No one has to bleed unless, like, you’re quite into that sort of thing.”

Harry sniffs and Eleanor releases the safety.  Liam’s fingers wriggle behind his shield, the cold vibranium guarding his forearm.  That extra dosage of adrenaline surges through his blood and he swallows it all down.

“Oi, don’t be a twat, Mr. Britain,” Cher huffs, brushing her cheek to the blunt side of her knife.  “Give ‘im up.”

“ _Captain_ Britain, you _cocky bi_ – “

“Now, now,” Cher hisses, narrowing her eyes at Eleanor with a cheeky smirk.  It’s cold and ruthless and Liam feels the anticipation splitting his chest in half.

“Don’t be rude,” she whispers, wriggling her eyebrows.

“You’re wasting your time, you manic twat,” Harry smiles, his arm strung back, forearms tensing with the exertion.  The tip of his arrow is lined with the small space between her eyebrows.

Cher rolls her eyes, groaning.  She stomps her feet petulantly, twisting her knife.  “Shut your filthy mouth,” she grumbles.  “Or I can cut your tongue out for you.”

“Sounds fun,” Harry replies, still smiling, drawing his arm further back like he’s seconds from releasing his grip.

She huffs, rocking back on her heels.  “Fine,” she puffs and it’s seconds.  _Milli_ seconds really.  She lowers her knife but her spare fingers jerk a gun from her side and the spray of bullets whirl through the air, taking down two agents instantly.

“Kill ‘em,” she barks, rolling behind the thick line of men, “but don’t leave Malik brain dead.  I need his head!”

The crackle of bullets lurches him from his position.  He shoves Zayn back, doesn’t bother to look over his shoulder at Zayn sliding back across the cold floor.  His arm yanks his shield into the line of fire, ducking behind it immediately.

“Keep them back!” Eleanor barks, rolling away from the next array of bullets.  She crouches behind expensive furniture, aiming her shots to take down a few men.

“Malik,” Harry calls, deft fingers reloading arrow after arrow.  He clips five guards without blinking, ducking a whistle of bullets.

“Got ‘im,” Liam shouts.

He skims over the floor on his knees, dropping in front of Zayn.  He heaves his shield in front of them, listens to the constant ring of bullets vibrating off of the alloy.

“Alright?” he asks Zayn, struggling for breaths.

Zayn nods sheepishly, crawling back.

“Close?”

“Close,” Zayn repeats with a stammer, biting his lip, nodding once more.

Liam grins, swallowing.  His heart is weighing down his tongue and that sureness in Zayn’s eyes, like he _trusts_ Liam.  Like he’s overwhelming certain Liam will protect him makes something fever sharp run through Liam’s lungs.

“Stay down,” he suggests, patting softly at Zayn’s ankle before launching to his feet again.

He keeps his shield up, deflecting bullets.  It cracks against a skull, his knee slamming into a jaw.  He tosses it at a line of men, throttling them off their feet.  He leaps outward, locking his ankles around a neck to take another man down.  His kip up to his feet is smooth and his reflexes work off the adrenaline to duck a knife spiraling at his head.

Cher winks from across the room, snapping a SHIELD agent’s neck before stealing his gun.

“Fucking cunt,” Harry grunts, a trick arrow spinning around to take down two men at once.

“Dirty mouth,” Cher growls, slicing through another agent, dodging bullets without much exertion.

“Captain,” Eleanor shouts, huffing hair out of her face, standing with a gun in each hand now.  “Covering Malik?”

Liam nods, catching his shield after it volleys off another attacker.  He sprints across the room, weaving through a barrage of bullets, catching an uppercut against someone’s jaw.  He can hear the crack of bones, smeared blood over his knuckles.

It’s not enough.  He stomps his foot into the stumbling guard’s sternum, eyes him as he hurls back into a stone column.

He needs to keep Zayn safe.

His blood throbs with nothing but a single chant: _fight, fight, fight._

“Now might be a good time for back up, Calder,” Harry suggests, yanking a used arrow from someone’s chest, switching out the head for a target-beam one.  He launches it into the crowd, grinning when it catches in someone’s hand.

“Working on it,” Eleanor huffs, sliding beneath a desk.  “Alpha team, on the go.  Bring in Agent Green.”

“Agent _what_?” Harry half-laughs with an arched eyebrow.

“Not now Styles,” she replies, shattering a window with stray bullets.

Liam curls an arm around Zayn, tugging him into his chest.  They struggle to their feet, ducking behind a column chipped away by bullets.

“How about that dance you owe me?” Liam teases, wincing.  There’s glass in his arm, a steady river of red trickling down his forearm.

Zayn blinks down at it, wraps his fingers around Liam’s wrist.  Liam pulls away with a soft smile and watches Zayn’s hand come back crimson.

“But you – “

Liam shakes his head, curling his bloody arm around Zayn.  He hitches their hips together, angling them enough that Zayn is hidden mostly behind his shield.

“I’ve never had a proper dance,” Liam groans, his nose scrunching.  There’s a bullet in his shoulder.  He can feel the shift of the metal and he tries to hide the wound by pressing further into Zayn.  “And you owe me, okay?”

Zayn nods slowly, nervous lip caught between his teeth.

“To the lifts, alright?” Liam requests.

“Stay with me?” Zayn whispers, loose hair in his eyes.

Liam uses his chin to nudge the fringe out of the way, putting on a grin.  He’s dripping blood over the floor and his muscles _throb_ but his determination leaks the adrenaline all over.

“On three?” Liam offers.

Neither one of them waits for their cue.  Bullets are sinking into the stone, glass cracking, footsteps getting closer.  He swallows the bile in his mouth and spins them away from the column.

His shield keeps the bullets off of them.  He drags Zayn, running backwards, trying to balance coordination with this earnest need in his gut.  They stumble some and he can see three men drawing nearer – two to the left, one on the right.

Harry is distracted, splitting arrows into the air.  Eleanor has a guard pinned down, her gun aimed at another one approaching.  There’s a pile of bodies in the middle of the lobby and all he can hear is the white noise each time a new gun is cocked.

 _Almost there_ – the lift, the men dashing after them.

His ears are filled with the heavy bass of his heart.  Heavy metal.  Fight, fight –

A window in the lobby shatters.  Cher’s head jerks up, her knife lodged in an agent’s gut.  Something like relief stretches over Harry’s lips and an avalanche of SHIELD agents pile through the cracked glass.

Out a corner of his eye, Liam watches.  It’s almost a blur – blonde hair, pale skin, wild eyes no longer blue like the tip of a flame.  They’re green like moss, like ivy.  There’s more muscle too, extra height.  A flash of punches that knock a few guards back, a hand wrapped around a throat to toss another guard around the lobby.

Niall grins over his shoulder, sweating, hunched over.

“Niall?” Liam chokes out.

“Good ta see ya, Captain,” Niall huffs, hair falling messily into his eyes.  He blinks it out and charges back into the crowd, throttling a few more agents with an intense speed that’s almost inhuman.

“Glad you could join the party,” Harry teases, rolling off of Niall’s back to flick another arrow off of his bow.

“I never get invited to any of the good parties,” Niall groans, his knuckles bruising a cheek.  “Am I too boring?”

“Nope,” Harry smiles.  “You drink up all of the alcohol, mate.  A right twat, you are.”

Niall’s booming laugh echoes off the rattle walls.  His muscles stretch under his skin and _his veins_ – they’re as green as his eyes now.  He’s laughing it off, leaping around the lobby, dodging bullets.

Liam wrinkles his eyebrows, huffing for a breath while Zayn jams his fingers into the lift’s keypad.  The ping of the door is barely heard over the noise crackling through the lobby but Zayn’s desperate fingers curl into his shirt and Liam nods.

He drags them inside, pulling Zayn into a corner.  The rattle of bullets tossed at them clink off the metal doors and his breath hitches when everything finally goes silent.

 

++

 

All he sees is _red_.

Liam slumps against the wall opposite of Zayn, his chest rattling for oxygen.  Streaks of crimson down his arm, his fingertips smeared in it.  It’s staining Zayn’s shirt, flicking small puddles over the floor of the lift.  A shallow streak on the side of Zayn’s neck where his fingers cupped him, kept him close.

Always _close_.

“Li,” Zayn mumbles, tensing to stop the shakes.  “Li?”

Liam swallows, grins.  He can barely feel the bullet in his shoulder, the one lodged into his bicep now.  The glass tickles rather than itches.  He’ll heal but the drag of the lift up the shaft leaves him lightheaded.

But he’ll heal.

“Got a plan?” he coughs, still clutching a smile.

Zayn’s fingers tremble when he reaches out but Liam shakes his head.

 _Distance and space_.  It’s all he needs.  He just needs to know Zayn is safe and away from him.  And there’s nothing to fill the gaps between them except their ragged breathing as the lift lurches higher up the building.

“Just need to,” Zayn stutters, pulling a hand through his hair.  “Fuck.  Get to my office, yeah?  Or the roof.  JARVIS can patch into SHIELD.  Get us a jet, right?”

“Right,” Liam repeats, softly.  Warm blood paints his palm and he hides it behind his back when Zayn’s eyes dart towards it.  “Could use a proper lie-in.  I’m absolutely knackered from watching you work all night.”

Zayn’s lips twist crooked into a pitying smile.  “You fell asleep, you idiot.”

Liam hums, tilting his head back to rest along the wall.  “You’re boring.”

“M’not,” Zayn argues with a soft laugh.  “I’m the sickest part of your life, old man.”

A laugh drags from his chest and he winces at the way it makes the bullets shift.

“Shut it.”

“Dinosaur,” Zayn spits back with a wider grin.  “Cave man.  Ninety and still a complete _bore_.  What a lad.”

His eyes droop a little and it feels like gravity has given up on them.  He’s floating in the softness of Zayn’s voice, the smoky curl of his accent, the affection in his half-lidded eyes.

“Ninety,” Liam groans, his nose scrunching at the throb in his arm, “and still the best shag you’ve ever had, mate.”

Zayn scoffs and Liam loves the sound.  It vibrates through this tiny metal room and he clings to it when the elevator lurches and the doors swing open.

The adrenaline is immediate.  The awareness knocks him out of the clouds.  He glares at the numbers on the lift a second too late.  It’s not their floor.

He leaps across the lift, his shield already up.  He can’t see how many of them there are but he knows they’re not from SHIELD.  He catches their guns already lifting.  The bullets rattle into their small cage, fluttering off the vibranium.  Zayn yelps behind him, pushed into the corner, hands scrambling over Liam’s spine.

His fingers stretch for a button.  His knuckles slam into it and he puts all of his weight behind his shield to keep the bullets out.

The doors drag shut and he stumbles away.  Everything is hazy now.  He’s dripping over the floor and his lungs have to stretch wide to suck in oxygen.

Another bullet, his abdomen this time.  He’s still awake when he trips into the wall, thudding against it, holding a hand up to keep Zayn back.

 _Distance_ and _space_.  He just wants to keep him safe.  He just wants –

He wants Zayn’s lips on his jaw, his calming fingers down his spine, his thighs bracketing Liam’s hips.

But he’ll heal.  Even with Zayn’s panicked breathing and all of the grey solar flares behind his eyelids.  Nothing but red staining his jeans dark and creating a dotted crumb trail from Zayn’s feet to his.

He will heal.

 

++

 

“C’mon Liam,” Zayn begs, struggling.  “Get on with – _come the fuck on_ , Payne.  Move.”

His heavy eyes flutter for a moment.  Just a blur of images, a swirl of colors he almost recognizes.  His arm is limp, slung around Zayn’s shoulders.  They’re stumbling, his feet dragging, his lungs squeezing for more air.  Shiny streaks of vermillion slip down his skin as he leans most of his weight on Zayn.

“Almost there,” Zayn heaves, pulling him closer to the office.

 _Zayn’s_ office.

Almost there.

Zayn shoulders through the doors, groaning.  Liam stumbles off of him, pulling his shield-covered arm up to put pressure on the wound left of his navel.  He’s gulping, holding down vomit, taking in dead air.  He leans into a wall, trying not to slump down, and he only blinks up when Zayn gasps fills all of the static in his ears.

“The funny thing about practically raising an insufferably spoilt little shit,” Ben grins with a forearm curled tightly around Harry’s throat, the tip of a knife at his temple.  “You’d think I could figure out your daft password by now, yeah?”

Harry’s struggling against the muscles pinning him, his white teeth bared.  His fingers curl around Ben’s forearm but he can’t knock him away.

“Ben,” Zayn stammers.

“Oi, fuck off you mad _punk_ ,” Ben sighs, skimming his knife over Harry’s pinkish skin.  A thin line of blood follows the misshapen path.  “Like you couldn’t possibly work out in your _brilliant_ mind that I’ve always wanted you out of the way.”

Liam pushes himself off of the wall, staggering.

“Wait a minute little soldier boy,” Ben smirks, squeezing Harry tighter.  “I’ve got plans and you are just a bother.”

His reflexes fail him, his arm not quick enough.  Another bullet threads through his jeans, nicks his calf.  He falters to his knees, clenching his throat around a groan, biting on his tongue.

“Quite a mess you’re making here, love,” Cher snickers.

She slinks from behind Zayn’s desk, puffing hair out of her eyes.  There’s scratches along her skin, spots of red staining her clothes and Liam is certain that none of it is hers.  Her fingers tighten around the gun still aimed at Liam.

“ _Cher_ ,” Ben warns.

She pouts, huffing before lowering the gun.  “You’re absolutely no fun, Winston.”

Ben hums, smiling behind his blade.

Zayn jolts across the carpet, kneeling next to Liam.

He wants to shove him away.  Push him to the lifts, to the roof, _beg_ Higgins to spare Zayn.

Liam wants nothing but to save his life and, absently, he thinks it has nothing to do with Andy.  Or how much he hates Zayn.

He just wants to prove to Zayn that heroes aren’t just written into the comic books.

“It’s quite amusing,” Ben sneers, dragging his eyes to another corner of the room.  Liam blinks, narrows his eyes and watches Calum and Michael step into view, Ms. Watson whimpering in Ashton’s arms with a gun at her throat.

“You lot actually thought the most _obvious_ one let you down,” Ben continues.  He shakes his head, Harry’s face going red from the struggle.  “It’s quite a shame how a few pounds buys off so many _‘agents’_ of SHIELD.  Makes it so much easier to distract you pathetic lot.”

“Like mice in a maze,” Cher snorts.

Zayn’s hands scramble to cover Liam’s wounds.  He shivers, the cold sinking in, eyes on the floor to blink the tears out of Zayn’s view.  Instead, he watches the spotted blood staining the carpet like a Rorschach picture.

“Now Zayn,” Ben coos, dragging Harry forward, “Be a good lad, okay?  I loved your dear baba but ‘m not against killing you like I did that senseless bastard.”

Zayn’s head snaps up, a snarl in his throat.  Liam drags his eyes up, eyeing the way Zayn’s breathing speeds up, fingers digging into Liam’s skin.  It’s the adrenaline.

“You – _you_ murdered him?” Zayn stutters.

Ben shakes with a laugh, his knife almost slipping.  “He was an idiot,” he explains, kneeing Harry’s thigh to stop his struggling.  “The pathetic bloke wanted world peace or summat.  Absolute madness.  This world thrives on the chaos.  Wars create men and peace is for the weak.  Imagine the opportunities he destroyed trying to find a cure for your mummy.”

Zayn is pale, his face somewhere between grief and fury.  His fingers, smeared a toxic red from Liam’s blood, curls into fists, his airy pants heavy over the throb of Ms. Watson’s pleading.

“Don’t go being brave, Malik,” Calum suggests, cocking his gun.

“Yeah, lad,” Michael snickers.  “Save all of your _daddy issues_ and give up the password.”

Cher grins, leaning on the desk while Ashton wriggles his eyebrows, pressing the cold metal gun into Ms. Watson’s temple.

“Imagine the kind of London we can build, Zaynie,” Ben boasts.  “We could be this city’s leaders.  The _world_ , even.  We could accomplish things your father never did.”

Liam shakes his head, trying to clear all of the fuzzy acid spots from his vision.  He quietly swallows oxygen into his lungs.  He’s a little stronger and the sting from the bullets embedded into tissue start to dull.

Still, he can’t focus enough to get Zayn out of here.

To keep him –

“S’that the problem with you bad guys, right?  Always wanting to show off your cocks.  A pissing contest, mate.”

Liam blinks to his left, something calm and freeing settling into the blood not trickling out of his muscles.

Louis is standing over him, smirking, nothing but skintight black and a pair of guns raised.  He’s got his hands split between Ashton and Cher, something thick and cocky stretching his smile.

Cher growls but Ben hisses her back.

“C’mon Widow,” he coos, fingers curling into Harry’s hair to jerk his head up.  “You must’ve excelled at maths – “

“I sucked at it,” Louis replies, arching an eyebrow.

“There’s too many of us.  Just you, mate.  Captain is bleeding all over this massively posh carpeting and Zayn is, well, _useless_ ,” Ben warns, jerking at Harry’s hair again.  “And poor Hawkeye – “

“Think I won’t shoot him?” Louis offers while flexing an eyebrow, trading his aim at Ashton for Harry’s head.  “Wouldn’t be the first time, right Haz?”

Harry gasps a noise that spits out like a _‘fuck you’_ but Liam can’t make it out.

He can only hear the soft, quiet thump of his heart.  He’s numb and everything feels heavy.  He wants that weightless feeling of dreams and Zayn’s linen back.

“Plus,” Louis grins, flicking his eyes to Zayn for a moment, “You’ve been trying to hack his system for awhile, right?  You’re quite aware of the weird little shit’s secondary plan, yeah.”

Ben wrinkles his eyebrows.  “What the fuck are you – “

“JARVIS,” Zayn whispers, red-tipped fingers brushing over the bracelet on his wrist.  “ _Mark I_ , now.”

“But sir – “

“JARVIS,” he scowls.

“Be a good lad, Zaynie, and shut the fuck up,” Ben grunts, pressing the edge of his knife to one of Harry’s dimples.

“Oi, don’t be a dick,” Louis croons, the head of his gun tracking Cher’s flinching moves.  He does it without looking, eyes still trained on Ben.  “Let the cocky bastard have some fun, yeah.”

Ben barks a noise.  “Whatever you daft shits are playing at, don’t you fucking think about – “

The office rattles.  It’s the roar of a jet but smaller.  The glass shakes and Liam can feel it through the floors, under his palms.

He can feel _something_ coming.

The window splinters and glittery shards burst like tiny raindrops into the office.  Zayn rolls away from Liam while Liam ducks behind his shield.

He blinks over the edge and watches bits of swirling iron armor pulse into the office from outside.  He swallows down his own blood, eyeing each piece as it throttles through the room and tailspins towards Zayn.

Zayn is quick on his feet, the armor snapping and clinking around him.  A few parts shuttle by, crashing into the walls but he ignores them.  His iron fingers curl into a fist like he’s adjusting to the weight, a chest plate smacking over his ribs, lining up with his arc reactor.  It shines like a blue supernova, blinding Liam for a moment.  His foot drops into another section of armor, the jets at the bottom lifting him.  Zayn hovers for a moment before he crashes down into the carpet with a steel fist deflecting most of the fall.

“ _Christ_ , mate,” Michael howls, stumbling away.

Harry elbows out of Ben’s loose grip, rolling forward, reaching for his bow.

Louis curls his arm for a shot, curving his bullet, ducking the wall of bullets Cher rattles at him.  His own bullet streaks through the office, spitting past Ms. Watson’s hair, catching Ashton in the skull.

Her shrieks and the cracking glass and the roar of Zayn’s armor pounds in Liam’s head.  A burst of lasers scatters from Zayn’s open palm, singeing through the room, knocking Michael into a wall of glass.  The momentum hurls him out of the window and Zayn winces only slightly as he drops down into London traffic.

Just enough strength.  He’s got _just enough_ strength.  Just enough adrenaline in his blood and recycled oxygen in his lungs.  He pushes to his feet, using his knuckles for assistance.  It’s a reckless sprint across the room, weaving through Cher’s line of bullets with his shield up.

He cracks into Calum with all of his force in his feet.  It shoves Calum into the bookcase and Liam smashes a pair of bloodied knuckles into his skull before he can recover from the shock.

Liam tumbles, staggers on his feet.  His vision finds that hazy rhythm again.

He turns on his heels, grimacing, staring at the tangle of Louis and Cher struggling over a gun on the desk.  Their hands are stretched, her knife streaking a gash of red down his neck, trying to dig into his uniform.  He pulses her with an electric bite from his wristband but she fights back.  Fingers wrap around the gun, her teeth gnawing into his forearm to stop him.  She rolls on top, cackling, her knife at his throat.

“Sorry, babe,” Harry pants, his brow strung tight with running veins of red across his arm.  “I owe that little twat for Moscow.”

She’s _almost_ quick enough, tugging Louis in the way but Harry squints an eye to line up his target.  He smirks at Louis, flicking the arrow free.  It cuts the air with a whirl and nicks the side of Louis’ neck, catching her shoulder.

A second arrow, with less precision, streaks across the room when she stumbles off the desk and Liam watches her large eyes flutter for a moment before her yelp echoes in the London skyline as she falls out of the window.

In the fizz of smoke and his wavy vision, Liam watches Louis flip Harry off before they share a smile stitched with relief.  He thinks he can see Louis mouth a _‘thank you’_ but he turns too quickly to be certain.

“Fucking kids,” Ben growls.

Liam is breathless, kneeling on the carpet, knuckles digging into the softness.  He glares up through his eyelashes, the whole room still a fuzzy portrait of destruction.  He gulps down air but it stings.  Everything _burns_ – his muscles, his joints, his bones, his organs.

Ben stands over him with a hand spray painted red from the blood while gripping Louis’ Glock.  A killshot.  He counts the seconds in his head – he’ll be able to dream.

He won’t see Andy’s face or the grainy black and white or _anything_ anymore.

He can dream and his father would be proud.

“Stupid, fucking children,” Ben grunts, his hand shaking.  “You can’t win a war when you don’t have an army.”

“We don’t need an army.”

Liam keeps his eyes on the gun.  He can’t look at Zayn.

He wants to dream and Zayn’s face can’t be the last thing he sees.

“It only takes one,” Zayn huffs, thumping closer to Liam with a raised hand.  His voice is digitalized by the iron mask.  Something whirs in his armor, everything heating up.  “Captain Britain taught us that, remember?”

Liam is not certain if it’s Ben’s screams or the roar of Zayn’s repulsor but all of the white noise crowds him as he watches Ben blasted across the room by the velocity of Zayn’s bluish beam.  His body drags over the ground, tumbling out of the shattered window.

Ben crumbles downward into the flicker of London like a coin dropped into the ocean.

Liam takes his first breath – _relief_ , he’ll remember one day – and it’s only half filling his lungs before he crumples to the floor.

There’s a hand under his head, soft and familiar, and he focuses enough to see Zayn leaning over him.  A shiny helmet covers his hair, a face mask lifted so Liam can see Zayn’s glassy eyes.  He smiles and even that hurts now.  But Zayn grins back, eyelashes flicking salty wetness down on to Liam’s cheeks.

Zayn lifts Liam into his arms and even _this_ is familiar.  He remembers a cabin in the woods, the blinking city behind them, his strong arms cradling a sleeping Zayn from the truck to the front steps.

 _Weightless_.  He feels like gravity is suspended while Zayn hovers them in the office by the propulsions in his armor.

“Stay with me?” Zayn whimpers, biting his bottom lip over and over.  “ _Close_.”

Liam struggles to laugh, his chest heavy, his muscles numb.

He can hear Eleanor through Harry’s in-ear – _‘building is clear where are the Captain and Malik?’_ – and he sighs happily.

He can dream.  Black and white, a thickness behind his eyelids, but he can _dream_ –

Because he kept his word.  He followed orders.  Zayn is _safe_.

 

++

 

It’s not the same dream.

Everything is soft variations of white.  A swirl of cream, fuzzy and comforting and it’s like he’s floating.

He’s swimming and weightless and gravity feels so foreign here.  It’s sterile and calm.  There’s soft music in his ears and the water doesn’t weigh down his arms.  He stays afloat, skimming the surface, drifting.

His tongue presses to the roof of his mouth and he finally swallows the only thing he’s ever known –

 _Fight, fight, fight_.

Liam doesn’t want to wake up.

His eyes slowly blink open.  The sting of white glow from fluorescent lights overhead blind him.  The room stinks of clean linen, bleach, a _coldness_ Liam knows from hospital beds.

Under the layer of beeping machines and dripping intravenous lines, he can hear something vaguely familiar.  He knows the music.  His fingers struggle to tap along to it over a scratchy wooly blanket thrown across him.

He blinks to his right at a sleeping Louis curled into a hard metal chair and his lips painfully twitch into a smile.  He whispers, his lungs learning to stretch and contract again, a soft _‘still alive who you love?’_ and his heavy eyes stare anxiously at Louis until he jolts awake.

“Bon Iver?” Liam asks, teeth cautiously nibbling on his lower lip.

“Yeah,” Louis yawns, stretching in the uncomfortable metal chair.  “How’d you know?”

Liam grins, wriggling his eyebrows.  He waits a beat for Louis to catch on, a choking laugh burning up his chest when Louis flicks him off.

“Fucking hell,” Louis groans, his cheeks flushed.  “Obvious?”

Liam shakes his head, barely.  He squeezes his fingers into the blanket, the rough texture prickling his palm.

“Not really,” he hums, looking away.  He flinches from the pain, the bruises and swollen skin along his face.  There’s a cut on his bottom lip that he licks at, the sour taste of copper along his tongue.

“I hate you,” Louis chews out, smiling.

“Feelings mutual, mate,” Liam coughs.

Louis leans over in his chair with his elbows on his knees.  He narrows those sea salt eyes at Liam, tilting his head.  “I’m impressed, grandpa,” he sighs.

It hurts to lift his brow but Liam does it anyway.  He keeps lazy eyes on the ceiling, counting the beeps of a heart monitor.

“You trusted me enough to save your life back there,” Louis adds with hunched shoulders.  “Didn’t think you _cared_ – “

“We’re a team,” Liam groans, his smile small to keep the stitches in place.  “The Avengers, right?”

His vision is still grainy but, in his peripheral, he can see Louis’ soft smile.  He can see Louis’ cards on the table, all of his tells _finally_ showing.  His poker face removed and nothing but an overeager boy looking for a family remains.

Between dreams, Liam thinks, it’s all any of them really need.  A _family_.  Two assassins for brothers and that geeky little blonde lad and a quietly protective sister like Calder and a four-letter word he refuses to associate with Zayn.

No – he _wants_ to associate with _Zain_.

“Yeah,” Louis breathes.  He drops a careless hand over Liam’s scratched knuckles, squeezing loosely.  “Higgins was wondering if you’d back out of it now.”

Liam hums instead of replying.  He wants to sink back into that weightless feeling again.

“Can’t really do it without a leader, Payno,” Louis murmurs, his voice smooth under the quiet music.

“I’m not much of a – “

“Oh shut it,” Louis snorts, clutching too tightly at Liam’s hand like he’s afraid to let go.  “Harry is already scheduling a time for us all to set tea.  El is ordering matching uniforms and Dr. Horan, the daft little shit, is bloody going on about his own trading card now that he’s somethin’ like a hero.”

“Is he – “

Louis drops his chin some.  His nose wrinkles – _another tell_ – but he fumbles a quick smile.  “They’re quarantining him for now.  Bloke did some experimenting on himself.  Gamma rays to help his healing process.  Some strong shit, man.  Bloody manic, I reckon – but a good lad.”

“A good lad,” Liam repeats, his mouth dry, his throat muscles catching on every other word.

He drifts into the clouds with heavy eyes.  He smiles at the ceiling and waits for the dreams.

“Speaking of,” Louis smirks and Liam wants to tug his hand away.  He wants to roll over and _away_ from Louis’ stupid grin and his words and that look in his eyes but –

“Plans for Saturday?”

“Sleeping,” Liam groans, his lip splitting when he grins.  He hisses with a furrowed brow.  “Nothing but sleep, Lou.”

“I thought you didn’t sleep?” Louis wonders, still smirking.

Liam’s tongue licks away the blood and his lips shake back into that crooked smile he never lets anyone but Louis see.  He didn’t sleep before but –

He blinks up at the ceiling and hopes his silence and his goofy smile is enough of an answer for Louis.

“Wonderful,” Louis beams.  “Because I was _thinking_ – “

Liam moans louder and considers calling for the nurse.  His throat is too scratchy and his lungs still too weak to do anything but he grins.  Just for Louis.  Just for that bloody mental killer who Liam thinks he _might_ trust.

“ – there’s this one bloke you should consider asking out,” Louis continues, giving Liam’s hand another squeeze.  “Absolutely brilliant lad.  Owns a company, loads of money.  A bit arrogant though.”

“Self-absorbed?” Liam asks, lips sticky with drying blood and a warm smile.

“Cocky.”

“Manic?”

“ _Out of control with power_ ,” they say together and Liam’s wheezing laugh floats just beneath Louis’ cackle.

“Should give him a ring and see if he’s available,” Louis suggests.

Liam hums, blinking away the white from his eyes.  He turns his head a little to look at Louis, the cool white from the lights giving him a dusting glow.

“Not interested,” Liam teases in a scratchy voice.

Louis frowns a little.  He shrugs, pushing out of the chair.  His fingers reach out to ruffle Liam’s already mussed hair.  He gives it a small tug, something Liam winces at but he doesn’t have the strength to swat Louis away.

Or take his head off with his shield like he promised he would so long ago.

“Fucking shame,” Louis huffs, stepping away from the bed.  He shuffles towards the door, a hand on the metal knob, a look over his shoulder.  He smiles crookedly before he says, “Because I already gave him your hospital room number.”

His brow wrinkles and he watches Louis laugh in the doorway, a teasing wink over his shoulder.

“Hey Lou.”

Louis half-turns while raising his brow.  In a moment meant for film and slow motion capture, Louis looks like someone Liam _wants_ to trust.

“Tell Harry I said hello,” he grins, stuffing down a laugh because it aches in his sternum.  “He’s a good lad.”

Louis grins.  The pale lights gleam off of his abashed look before he nods.  He’s chewing the inside of his mouth when he repeats, “A good lad.”

Liam can barely nod back but he tries.

“It’s a shame,” Louis hums, adjusting the gun in his hip, rubbing softly at all of the scratches on his neck from Cher’s knife and Harry’s arrow.  “I’ve been trying to find you a good lad for months now.  Think maybe you found one without me.”

Liam’s lungs stretch and fill with something _light_ – glitter and stars.  He blinks the fuzzy shapes from behind his eyelids and –

Zayn is leaning in the doorway, a sugary bottom lip tucked behind his teeth when Liam opens his eyes again.  His hair is loose – the way Liam _likes_ – and he’s snuggled into one of Liam’s jumpers.  The sleeves are tugged all the way down but Liam can make out all of the little scratches on his knuckles, the bruise under Zayn’s jaw.  He can’t see the arc reactor but he imagines it – cold steel under his fingertips like he’s found his way home – and his aching ribs suffer the sting when his heart starts to rattle behind them.

“I was thinking,” Liam smiles lazily, shifting over on the stiff bed.

“S’that safe for someone your age?” Zayn grins.

Liam rolls his eyes because it’s the only thing that doesn’t require effort.  He sighs, the sputtering of air making his lungs collapse.  He clears the cotton from his throat and Zayn shifts into the room, slow movements so Liam can watch.

He wishes he had Louis’ charm or Harry’s fearlessness or Niall’s goofy smile but –

“I haven’t been on a date in seventy years,” he moans.  His fingers squeeze into the blanket when Zayn freezes but he fumbles out a dumb grin just to watch all of Zayn’s muscles relax again.

“I dunno,” Zayn shrugs, walking around the chair.  “Can you snog properly?”

Liam sniffs out a giggle, tucking his chin.  He presses the hot blush on his cheek to the cool side of the pillow.  His eyes crinkle and he knows he looks maniac but –

“Someone has been teaching me,” he teases with this affection in his voice scratching at his throat.  “I’ve gotten better.”

“Have you?”

There’s a lazy lift to Zayn’s eyebrows and he’s closer now.  He’s got a hand sneaking over the blanket and an auxiliary one carding through Liam’s hair, a thumb tracing his hairline.  It’s hot but Liam doesn’t mind.

He doesn’t find a single reason in his blood to hate this boy.

Zayn leans over the bed, his mouth half-tricked into a crooked grin when Liam tilts his head to smile back.  He can smell his minty breath and there’s gold folded into the cinnamon of Zayn’s eyes.  His jaw is messy with stubble but it fits neatly over his skin and Liam wants to fool his muscles into believing he has enough strength to sit up and kiss this boy breathless.

“My mum always said to be kind to the elderly,” Zayn teases.

Liam makes a discontent noise that Zayn ignores.  Wet lips from a pink tongue press to Liam’s forehead and he’s definitely floating from something other than the drugs filtered into his system from tubes.

He twists his neck, a stiffness riding down his spine, to stare at Zayn.  He doesn’t look away when Zayn blushes and he wants to remember that moment in his dreams for another seventy years.

“I’m thinking of calling me’self Iron Man,” Zayn whispers.

He’s still close, a hazy daydream in Liam’s line of sight.

“Sounds horrible,” Liam smiles.

Zayn snorts, thuds their foreheads together.  “Shut it,” he grumbles.  “It fits.  The suit and, like, stuff.  I mean, what kind of name is _Batman_?”

Liam’s shoulders barely lift for a shrug.  He filters between the softness of Zayn’s breathing and the Bon Iver still strumming in the background.

“No changing your mind, I reckon?” Liam asks, leaning up into the palm Zayn presses to his cheek.  “About the Avengers?”

“ _Liam_ – “

“Alright,” Liam gasps, fluttering his eyes to shake off the sleep.  “But I’m not saving your arse every time the city is on fire.”

“Hey,” Zayn snorts, palming Liam’s cheek, “I reckon I just saved your arse, you dumb dinosaur.”

“I _let_ you,” Liam teases back with heavy eyes.

Zayn grins, biting along his lip.  It’s a sucker-red, sweet and full and Liam just wants to strain his muscles just enough to –

“Stop it,” Zayn scolds.  “No snogging until after the date.”

Liam raises his brow into a neat row of wrinkles.  “You’ve learned manners while I’ve been sat in a hospital bed?”

The crinkles along Zayn’s nose when he smiles make something warm spill into Liam’s blood.

“Iron Man,” he whispers, testing it on his tongue.  It’s light, numbing.  He likes it but he scoffs for the reaction Zayn gives him in return.  “You’re not even that far from a _boy_.  Complete nonsense.”

Zayn presses their foreheads together, nuzzles their noses.

“I figured _Iron Lad_ sounded a bit mad, y’know?  ‘Sides, you’ll learn to love it, mate.”

“Whatever.  A proper blowjob when I’ve gotten enough strength might change me mind,” Liam replies, his grin shameless when Zayn’s jaw goes slack.

He doesn’t blush and his heart doesn’t go out of rhythm and Zayn has completely bled into his cells now.

Liam, not for a single second, thinks he’ll ever want that feeling to go numb.

He yawns softly, shoving half of his face into the pillows.  He blinks up through his eyelashes as Zayn tilts his head.

“Stay with me?”

Zayn smirks, tangles his fingers in Liam’s hair.  “ _Close_ ,” he whispers and their fingers, over Liam’s chest, link and tighten like crossed wires.

Neither one of them pulls away this time.

“Budge up,” Zayn insists, crawling into the bed.

It aches all over to shift but Liam struggles through it.  He hisses and whines and Zayn laughs at him until he’s pressed all along Liam’s side – hips touching, thighs brushing, a wiry arm curled under Liam’s neck and around his shoulders.

Zayn produces a copy of _the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ from the back of his jeans like a magician.  He folds it open to the last page Liam remembers, from the cabin, from another world.

From _this_ world with this boy and his heavy metal heart.

And Liam finally feels like he _fits_ , like everything else is _out of place_ except Zayn and him.

Zayn reads softly, brushing the words into Liam’s hair, changing the tone of his voice when Liam’s eyes get heavier.  He presses his face into the crook of Zayn’s neck, breathes him in.  Their fingers only separate for Zayn to turn the pages and Liam sneaks a hand under the loose jumper to press over the cold steel to feel Zayn’s careful breaths.  He just wants to feel the heart beneath all of the alloy.

Liam takes a deep breath in Zayn’s arms and the ice is finally replaced by a calm warmth that wraps tightly around him.

He smiles, eyes fluttering shut to dream, and he _sleeps_.

He sleeps pressed into Zayn and there’s no fight left.

Just the taste of freedom and the warmth of a body next to him and _Zayn_ –

Zayn keeps him safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this wasn't horribly boring. I know it was _long_ ; forgive me for that. I had a bunch of ideas I wanted to put in there. Bonus if you caught all of the little film references I dropped and the allusions to other Marvel characters in there.
> 
> A bit nervous about this whole idea and whether it's any good but I'm hoping it's something enjoyable. You can catch me on tumblr if you want. Also, thanks to anyone who drops a comment or a kudos or a bookmark or just takes the time to read any of this.


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